
Class. 
Book. 



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WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT 



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WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF 
PERSONAL RELIGION? 



HENRY A. BOARDMAN, D.D. 

AUTHOR OP "THE BIBLE IN THE FAMILY," "THE BIBLE IN THE COUNTING- 
HOUSE," ETC. 






AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION: 



1122 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 
375 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 



C 



\isu 






\ 



? 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 6y the 

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court oftlie Eastern District of 



J^' No bocks are published by the American Sunday-School Union 
without the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of four- 
teen members, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Bap- 
tist, Methodist, Congregational, Episcopal, PresbyteHan, Lutheran, and 
Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of the members can be of the same 
denomination, and no book can be published to which any member of the 
Committee shall object. 



By exchange 
Army <fe Navy Club 



JUN 2 2 194t 



o 

-*- 

is 



PREFACE. 



It is an every-day occurrence, to meet with persona 
who " feel no interest" in the subject of religion, and 
who, on this ground, excuse themselves from giving 
their attention to it. I have in very many instances 
wanted some suitable book to place in the hands of 
persons of this description. 

Within a certain broad and comprehensive sphere, 
Baxter's Call, Alliene's Alarm, Doddridge's Rise and 
Progress, or Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, 
might answer the purpose. But, with a great number 
of individuals, not one of these admirable works could 
be used with any hope of its being read. 

Had I known where to find a book to meet the 

case, the present volume would not have been written. 

It has grown out of a conscious and urgent want. 
* * 1* 5 



b PREFACE. 

That it will fully supply this acknowledged and serious 
deficiency in our practical religious literature, I do not 
allow myself to believe. But I hope it may prove an 
acceptable offering to some who are either neglecting 
their own duty, or who have friends to whom they 
would like to propose the question — "Will You Con- 
sider the Subject op Personal Religion?" 

With these views, the work is sent to the press, and 
humbly commended to His blessing, who alone can 
make it an instrument of good. 

fl. A. B 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

n he Great Question, — Will you consider the subject 
of personal religion? 

The Bar and the Pulpit — No Interest in Re- 
ligion — God's right to be heard — The only 
way — Filial Impiety — A Mystery — Self- 
ignorance — Systematic Thoughtlessness — An 
evil Omen — Ashamed of Religion — An 
Anomaly — Antipathy to the Bible 11-43 

CHAPTER II. 

Illusive pleas examined. 

No Alternative — Christianity wronged — Im- 
becile Reasoning — Alienation from God — 

Tyranny of Habit — Observation — Experience 

7 



CONTENTS 



—The great Conflict — A sad Inversion — 
Prospective Repentance — The Heart hard- 
ened — In earnest 44-76 



CHAPTER III. 

The pretexts for neglecting religion, irrational and 
sordid. 

Mercenary Calculations — Divine Munificence 
— The dying Statesman — A base Return — 
The World first — Religion disparaged — 
Responsibility inevitable — White to the Har- 
vest — Sinning to repent — Infatuation — Sin- 
cerity tested — Means to be used — Will you 
try? 77-112 

CHAPTER IV. 

Encouragements. 

Unreasonable Demands — Success to be Ex- 
plained — Where it listeth — Waiting — Grace 
abounding — Our Immanuel — Mission of the 
Spirit — Living Witnesses — Long-suffering — 
Pause — Obduracy — The Spirit quenched, 118-147 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Religion must and will be considered. 

No Option — The World withdrawn — Alone 
with God — In Eternity — Mercy and Judg- 
ment — Before the Bar — Repentance or Per- 
dition — Remember — An appalling Retro- 
spect — Remorse — Mistaken Tenderness — 
Forever and ever — Believe and live 148-182 

CHAPTER VI. 

What can I do? 

Pepravity — The Remedy — The Mediator — 
Faith — Christ our Righteousness — Saved — 
Conviction — Come unto me — Repentance 
unto Life — Just as I am — A Chart — Begin 
now — The House of Prayer — Augustine — 
— Search the Scriptures — Christian Counsel 
— Promise of the Spirit — Pray without ceas- 
ing — What is your decision? 183-230 



Cfa feat (ftata: 

WILL YOU CONSIDER THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL 
RELIGION? 



CHAPTER I. 



I called once upon a very intelligent 
professional gentleman, for the purpose 
of conversing with him on the subject of 
religion. I knew that he had received 
an excellent Christian education; and 
that his whole life had been one of ex- 
emplary morality. But he was not yet 
a communicant in the church; and I 
was anxious to learn the precise ground 
he occupied. 

After stating my errand in general 

terms, I took occasion to assure him of 

the interest I felt in his spiritual wel- 

11 



12 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



fare, and of the satisfaction it would 
afford me, to see him giving his personal 
attention to the requirements of the 
gospel, and identifying himself with its 
professed disciples. He heard me with 
something more than respectful courtesy, 
and when I paused, replied substantially 
as follows : — 

" I feel grateful to you for your kind- 
ness in coming to me on this errand. I 
cordially assent to all you have said on 
the great importance of personal re- 
ligion. I wish from my heart I felt the 
interest in it which you have described. 
I know this ought to be the case, and 
trust the time is coming when it will be. 
But as a matter of fact, I must candidly 
say to you, that I feel no such interest 
in the subject at present." 

"I highly appreciate," I responded, 
"the frankness of your answer; it is 



THE BAK AND THE PULPIT. 13 



what I should have expected fiom your 
training, and your known principles. I 
am aware, too, of the serious nature of 
the impediment in your way. It is a 
difficult matter to take up a subject and 
examine it about which one feels no 
particular concern, and to which there 
may even be a conscious antipathy. 
But religion is of such paramount mo- 
ment, and the consequences of neglect- 
ing it are so irreparable, that neither 
this nor any other obstacle should hin- 
der us from attending to it. Are you 
willing to read on the subject, and to do 
other things which may be adapted to 
inspire you with that interest in it, the 
want of which you are deploring?" 

To this he readily assented. I sug- 
gested some books for his perusal, and. 
with a few counsels, left him. It is not 

for man always to trace out the subtle 
2 



14 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



mechanism of causes and effects. Nor 
do I know what agency, or whether any, 
this interview may have had in the sub- 
sequent result. But it is my happiness 
to know, that this able and estimable 
man, not very long afterward, made a 
profession of religion, and has now been 
for several years a most active and ef- 
ficient Christian minister, consistent in 
his life, abundant in his labours, and 
eminently useful. 

This is by no means a solitary ex- 
ample of the kind. Many an individual 
occupying the same ground with my 
friend, has, by a similar process, been 
put in possession of a sure and comfort- 
able hope of eternal life. Very many 
others there are, who are neglecting 
their salvation, purely on the ground 
that they " feel too little interest" in the 
matter, to take it up; too little even to 



THE QUESTION STATED. 15 



be willing to examine the gracious offers 
of the Gospel. It is this class of per 
sons to whom I beg to propose the ques- 
tion: "Will you consider the subject 
of personal religion ?" That we may 
perfectly understand each other, let me 
define what I suppose to be your state 
of mind. 

You receive Christianity as a divine 
system. You assent to its teachings. 
You admit the great alternative it pre- 
sents, of faith and repentance, or per- 
dition. You go with more or less regu- 
larity to the sanctuary. You honour 
those who show themselves to be real 
Christians. You hope one day to be 
among them, but you are not ready for 
this now. You "feel no particular inte- 
rest in the subject ;" and when it is pressed 
upon you, you fall back upon this state 
of indifference, as supplying a reason 



16 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



why you should pass all such appeals 
over to your neighbours, instead of ap- 
propriating them to yourselves. You 
expect some day to feel the interest in 
religion which you at present lack, and 
then you will bestow upon it that care- 
ful consideration which it demands. Till 
that time comes, you must be excused. 

Now if this be a just conception of 
the matter, you cannot fail to see that it 
brings you within the full sweep of the 
penalties denounced in the Scriptures 
against inconsideration. It is no answer 
to this charge to plead the "want of a 
disposition" to consider the subject. If 
you should submit a certain scheme of 
business or domestic policy to your chil- 
dren, and require their instant attention 
to it, you would be quite indignant 
should they treat it with neglect, and 
then tell you, by way of apology, that 



NO INTEREST IN RELIGION. 17 



they "felt no interest" in examining it. 
In your view, there would be two suffi- 
cient reasons why they should have ex- 
amined it without delay. First, because 
of its intrinsic importance ; and secondly, 
because you wished and commanded it. 
You would regard these considerations 
as paramount and controlling; as abso- 
lutely barring all objections on their part, 
to a compliance with your instructions. 
Their predisposition to neglect the mat- 
ter might even, if foreseen, have been a 
motive with you for urging it upon 
them; and what they offered as a pallia- 
tion of their remissness, might, in your 
judgment, add to its criminality. 

Deal honestly, and apply this reason- 
ing to the case we have in hand. You 
will not impugn the plenary right of the 
Deity to submit to us any subject, or 
prescribe to us any course of conduct he 

2* 



18 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



may see fit; and enjoin our immediate 
attention to it. Should a personage, 
claiming to have a message for you from 
God, and exhibiting competent creden- 
tials, present himself to you, your feeling 
would be, that every thing else must 
give way to this interview; that to 
subject the ambassador to a moment's 
unnecessary delay, would be an insult 
to his master; that whenever and how- 
soever it was God's pleasure to speak to 
you, it was your indispensable duty to 
hear and to obey. But God has spoken 
to you. He is speaking to you daily, 
He is speaking not only by prophets and 
apostles duly accredited, but by his be- 
loved Son. His communication is in 
your hands. It is in a tongue you can 
understand. You have access to it 
every hour of your life. It is, at stated 
intervals, set forth in your hearing. 



god's right to be heard. 19 



You cannot but know what the sub- 
stance of it is. Will it, therefore, avail 
you any thing to plead that you have 
neglected it because you had " no dispo- 
sition" to consider it? If your obliga- 
tion to attend to it had been suspended 
on your state of feeling, this might avail. 
But there is no such contingency in the 
case. It was not in ignorance of your 
state of mind that the message was sent. 
He who sees the end from the beginning 
foreknew precisely how you would be 
situated, and how you would feel; but 
he did not suppress nor modify the mes- 
sage. He has caused it to be laid before 
you in its integrity, and demands your 
candid, thorough, and prayerful conside- 
ration of it as your prime duty — a duty 
which must take precedence of all your 
secular plans and purposes whatsoever. 
It is a mere evasion of this claim, to 



20 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



urge that you will give your attention 
to it when you feel "more inclined" 
to think of it; an evasion which if 
attempted toward you by your children, 
would bring down upon them your swift 
displeasure. In one aspect, it is even a 
worse affront to God than a positive re- 
jection of the message; for it is a refusal 
to obey, coupled with a full acknowledg- 
ment of his authority to command. You 
admit that it is God who speaks to you, 
and yet you will not consider what he 
says. With what pungent significancy 
might he say to you, " If I be a father, 
where is mine honour? and if I be a 
master, where is my fear?" 

Take another view of the ground you 
occupy. The absolute right of the 
Supreme Being to propound any theme 
whatsoever, for your examination, has 
been conceded. It may aid you in 



THE ONLY WAY. 21 



estimating the guilt of your inconsidera- 
tion, to reflect on the import of the com- 
munication he has actually submitted to 
you. Not to launch forth here upon a 
boundless sea, let it suffice to say, that 
the Bible contains the only adequate 
revelation of the character and will of 
God, and discloses the only path which 
leads from earth to heaven. If our rea- 
son and consciences were in a healthful 
condition, it would startle us, should we 
ever be conscious of an indisposition to 
think of Him who made us, and in whom 
we live and move, and have our being. 
For what can be more rational, what 
more unavoidable, one might almost say, 
than that an intelligent creature should 
love to think of its Creator? And yet 
this is one part of the very sin here laid 
at the door of those with whom we are 
arguing — an aversion to think of God. 



22 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Meditations upon his attributes, espe- 
cially his moral attributes, are unwel- 
come to you. You have a tacit compact 
with yourself, that this subject is to be 
shunned whenever it can be ; and so, in- 
stead of sitting down to dwell upon the 
holiness, the justice, the love, and the 
mercy of the Deity, it is a grateful re- 
lief to you on the Sabbath, when the 
benediction dismisses you from the 
sanctuary, and you can go where you 
will not be compelled to hear about 
God. Surely there must have been 
some fearful dislocation of your moral 
faculties, when the essential instincts of 
your nature are thus overborne, and you 
can breathe freely only in an atmosphere 
surcharged with atheism. 

To recur to our illustration, what 
would you think of a group of children, 
who did their best to forget a wise and 



FILIAL IMPIETY. 23 



affectionate father; who drew their 
daily support from his bounty, without 
ever thanking him; who availed them- 
selves of his protection when in danger, 
and experienced his sympathy in sick- 
ness and sorrow, without acknowledging 
his goodness ; who rarely mentioned his 
name in their domestic intercourse, un- 
less it was to point a jest or energize an 
oath ; who, if they could avoid it, would 
not even permit their minds to dwell 
upon him, and when they heard others 
celebrate his virtues, found it a weari- 
some and stupid theme, to be enter- 
tained only so long as good breeding 
might require? Could an example of 
this sort be found among the households 
around you, you well know how notori- 
ous it wcoJd soon become as an illustra- 
tion of the Uackest filial impiety; how 
those unnsiural children wculcl be 



24 THE GREAT QUESTION 



pointed at as a set of monsters; and 
how their names would awaken emo- 
tions of horror in every generous bosom. 
But what are you doing? Have you 
not a Father, wise, bountiful, affectionate ; 
who supplies your daily bread, clothes 
you, guards you, heals you, comforts you, 
never wearies in doing you good, never 
ceases opening to you fresh sources of 
enjoyment? If so, you at least, who are 
so indignant at the display of ingratitude 
and hardihood we have just been con- 
templating, are earnest and constant in 
rendering to your Father the love and 
the homage which are his due. His 
name is often on your lips. His ear 
often drinks in the accents of praise 
which you pour forth on your bended 
knees. The book which reveals him is 
your most delightful study. Those who 
love and honour him most are your fa- 



WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. 25 



vourite companions. The Sabbath is 
the choicest day of the seven ; because it 
brings the most leisure for communion 
with him. And you would rather be a 
door-keeper in his house than to dwell 
in the tents of wickedness. Is it thus 
with you? Alas! how humiliating the 
reflection that it may be in all things 
the very reverse; that even with such a 
Father you make no suitable return of 
gratitude; own him not in your busi- 
ness, nor in your family; rarely open 
his word; seldom, if ever, utter his 
name; have no love for his ordinances; 
find his Sabbaths a burden, and repel 
the very thought of him from your 
breast, when it seeks to return after you 
have accomplished the perfunctory rou- 
tine of public worship ! What estimate, 
in all honesty, ought you to put upon 

this conduct? And what dimensions 
3 



26 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



will you assign to the flagrancy of that 
inconsideration which makes you shun 
all serious thoughts of God ? 

Marvellous as this phenomena must 
appear, there is another no way inferior 
to it. The inconsideration which the 
Bible lays at your door has respect nc 
less to your own character than to God. 
It might be supposed, that if an intelli- 
gent creature could, under the pressure 
of some strange mental or moral obli- 
quity, live in the practical forgetful- 
,ness of the Being who made him, it 
would at least be impossible for him to 
avoid thinking much about himself and 
his own paramount relations and pros- 
pects. It would be taken for granted 
that every thing pertaining to himself 
would awaken his deepest interest, and 
be made the subject of earnest study, 
just in proportion as it might bear 



STRANGE INCONSIDERATION. 27 



with more or less urgency upon his 
aappiness. 

Now, it must certainly be conceded, 
that you do think much about yourself 
The very neglect of God, of which we 
have just spoken, is combined with an 
enthronement of self in the heart, and 
around this centre all the plans of life 
are made to revolve. Instead of living 
for God, you live for yourself. His 
claims are adjourned that your own 
may be honoured. 

And yet it may be true that you are 
guilty of an extreme and highly criminal 
inconsideration as regards yourself. It 
may be that the things concerning your- 
self, which engross your attention, are 
stamped with utter insignificance when 
compared with other things which you 
neglect. It may be that having (as we 
all have) two distinct classes of attri- 



28 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



butes and two sets of relations, the in- 
ferior and transitory of these series so 
monopolizes your care, that you have 
neither leisure nor inclination to look 
after the other. At once mortal and 
immortal, dying and yet deathless, is it 
not the case, that the personal objects 
which occupy you are objects all of 
which are bounded by the narrow hori- 
zon of the present life? 

Claim for these objects whatever mag- 
nitude you may; set forth in whatso- 
ever terms their intrinsic value, and the 
reasonableness, and even necessity, of 
pursuing them; expatiate on the im- 
portance and obligation of a man's pro- 
viding for his family, and giving dili- 
gent heed to his business, and on the 
fitness of those social relaxations in 
which you are accustomed to indulge. 
Every thing you can equitably demand 



SELF-IGNORANCE. 29 



on these points will be conceded, and 
you will still be compelled to acknow 
ledge that all these interests are " of the 
earth, earthy/' and that they are no 
more to be ranked with other interests 
you have, than the body with the soul, 
and time with eternity. 

Is there no room here for the charge 
of culpable neglect? Is it a calumny to 
intimate, that among those into whose 
hands this book may fall, there may be 
some individual who rarely devotes an 
hour's serious consideration to the wants, 
the perils, and the duties of his spiritual 
nature? You understand well your re- 
lations to the world, but when have you 
investigated your relations with God? 
You are at home on every question per- 
taining to your secular engagements, 
but what do you know in respect to the 
state of your soul ? You keep pace with 

3* 



30 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



the progress of public affairs, and scan 
the journals of every day with eager 
curiosity to learn what is happening in 
Washington and in London, at St. Pe- 
tersburg and Canton; but what pro- 
gress are you making in self-knowledge, 
and how much time do you bestow 
upon the current of events within your 
own bosom — those events which will 
affect you for good or for evil, mil- 
lions of ages after this globe, with its 
cities and empires, shall have been 
burned up? 

Is it not a most surprising exhibition 
of inconsideration, that an individual 
should rarely, if ever, commune with his 
own heart? That he should know more 
of what is passing on the opposite side 
of the globe than of his own real condi- 
tion? That he should actually spend 
more time in studying the character and 



SYSTEMATIC THOUGHTLESSNESS. 31 



career of some foreign scholar, soldier, or 
usurper, than he does in examining his 
own principles and ascertaining his du- 
ties and prospects? 

This were strange enough, if it could 
be set down to the account of constitu- 
tional levity, or assigned to the category 
of mere fortuitous results, such as in 
other departments diversify the tapestry 
of human life, without having any very 
tangible causes. But it assumes a more 
serious aspect, when it is found that the 
parties in question practise this self- 
neglect of set purpose; that theirs is a 
considerate inconsideration ; that they re- 
frain from looking into their own hearts 
on system and from absolute aversion. 
This appears such a crime against the 
rational nature the Creator has endowed 
us with, that the statement would be 
deemed incredible, if the proofs of it 



32 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



were not too incontrovertible to be re- 
sisted. 

There are, on every side of us, persons 
whom neither argument nor entreaty 
can prevail upon to enter into a close 
and searching scrutiny of their own 
breasts. They are perfectly aware that 
. they have a long and very grave account 
with God; but they have no wish to 
know how it stands. They are con- 
scious that they must die, and that they 
may die at any moment; but they have 
no wish to meet the question, "Am I 
prepared for death?" They are antici- 
pating an endless existence beyond the 
grave; but they are unwilling to turn 
their eyes inward long enough to learn 
whether it is everlasting glory or eter- 
nal shame for which they are ripening. 
There is a something there which repels 
them. They cannot bear to hold fel- 



AN EVIL OMEN. 33 



lowship with themselves. They would 
sooner look anywhere than into their 
own hearts. Questions of trade interest 
them; questions of politics, of science, 
of literature; the trivial incidents of 
every-day life ; the interchanges of friend- 
ship; for all these they have an eye and 
an ear. But when it comes to inquiries 
like these: "What am I? Where am 
I? Whither am I tending? What por- 
tion has my soul? How can I meet my 
God?" all their interest vanishes. They 
drive out these topics from their breasts 
as they would a set of intrusive visitors 
from their houses, and replace them with 
the evanescent, but more grateful themes 
which are clothed with the tinsel livery 
of earth. 

An impartial judge would be apt to 
say, on this naked showing of facts, that 
there must be something radically wrong 



34 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



here* And, to deal frankly, does it nos 
strike you so also — you, I mean, whG are 
implicated in this representation? Ad- 
mitting, as you do, the existence of all 
those relations of which we have been 
speaking, you cannot but regard it as an 
evil omen that you should be conscious 
of an indisposition to reflect on your own 
course of life, to weigh your motives, to 
explore the recesses of your heart, and 
learn what manner of spirit you are of. 
There must be, underneath this superfi- 
cial complacency of demeanour, a latent 
feeling that things are not with you as 
they should be. You are probably no 
stranger to the misgivings of the mer- 
chant who fears to make out a balance- 
sheet, lest it may prove him a bankrupt; 
or the misgivings of an invalid, who 
shrinks from consulting a physician, be- 
cause he believes himself smitten with a 



A LESSON FROM THE BRUTES. 35 



fatal malady. But however that may 
be, these secret apprehensions are held 
in check, and you live on in a voluntary 
ignorance of yourself, which would ex- 
cite universal wonder, if the depravity 
which produces it were not also uni- 
versal. 

My object in presenting these conside- 
rations is, to lead you to reflect with 
calmness and impartiality on the posi- 
tion you occupy. The charge the Scrip- 
tures bring against you is, that you will 
not consider; that while the beasts of 
the field, even the least sagacious of 
them, the ox and the ass, act in accord- 
ance with the laws of their constitution, 
you live in the violation of those laws; 
that the subjects to which your inconsi- 
deration applies are of no mere specula- 
tive character, but pre-eminently practi- 
cal and important; that you are even 



36 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



unwilling to think seriously of your 
Creator, and what is yet more surpris- 
ing, to think seriously of yourself. 

The impression which such an exposi- 
tion is adapted to make upon your mind 
will be still further confirmed, when you 
remember that this inconsideration, this 
unwillingness to reflect and investigate, 
extends to the whole subject of Religion. 
It is not improbable that your associar 
tions with this very word may be disa- 
greeable, or at least unwelcome. Against 
religion in the abstract you have nothing 
to say. You assent to its teachings. 
You respect its institutions. You desire 
its prosperity. You attend, not without 
some interest, upon its public ministrar 
tions. But when it comes to be a per- 
sonal matter, to the reading of a reli- 
gious book, to a religious conversation 
with a Christian friend, to pray, to any 



ASHAMED OF RELIGION. 37 



thing which looks directly to your be- 
coming religious, then your aversion to 
it begins to work. 

If on entering a room alone you should 
see a table covered with books, and on 
taking one of them up should find it a 
religious treatise, would you not lay it 
down with an emotion almost amounting 
to positive antipathy? Should you hap- 
pen to sit down at the same table, with 
an open Bible before you, would not the 
first sound of an approaching footstep 
make you shut up the volume and move 
from the place, lest perchance some one 
might suspect you of reading the Scrip- 
tures? Or, to proceed a step further, 
should your pastor call to converse with 
you on the subject of religion, would you 
not, if possible, elude either the interview 
or the subject? Would you not decline 
a walk with a Christian friend, if you 



38 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



thought he might avail himself of the 
opportunity to address you in a serious 
and pointed way on the question of your 
salvation? Would it not be distasteful 
to you to join a social circle, where you 
knew the great themes of evangelical 
Christianity would be the leading topics 
of the evening? I do not affirm these 
things; but if they are so, if your own 
conscience assents to the substantial ac- 
curacy of this representation, what an 
affecting view have we presented to us 
of your moral condition ! 

You aspire, we will suppose, to the 
character of a cultivated and refined per- 
son. You are eager in the pursuit of 
knowledge. You search for it in the 
depths of the ocean, and along the star- 
lit galleries of the firmament. You can 
spend hours in analyzing a flower or de- 
composing a drop of water. You are 



AN ANOMALY. 39 



willing to take lessons from the birds, 
the fishes, the insects, from the very peb- 
bles under you feet. You range through 
all history. You study foreign lan- 
guages, that you may explore the libra- 
ries and decipher the monuments of other 
lands. Wherever knowledge is to be ac- 
quired, in the humblest repositories or in 
the most inaccessible, you are ready for 
the effort. But it is all with this single 
and most remarkable exception. Here 
is a volume which contains more truth, 
and truth of greater importance, than 
all other volumes combined. Where 
other books deal in guesses and hypo- 
theses, and where nature is silent, this 
book speaks with distinctness, with ful- 
ness, and with authority. It is in fact 
the* only source to which we can look for 
satisfactory information respecting our 
Creator, ourselves, and the way of salva- 



* 40 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



tiori. And it is commended to us by 
having impressed upon it that sublime 
title, " The Wisdom of God." Yet from 
this book you turn away ! The volume 
which, it might be presumed, would draw 
every lover of truth to its pages with an 
irresistible attraction, is the very work 
which you find jejune and prosaic; so 
much so, that it even imparts the same 
taint to every work deduced from it. 

If the cause of this phenomenon be in- 
quired into, it will readily be discovered. 
The Bible is not simply a book of 
science or a book of literature, but a 
religious book. We must eliminate the 
religious element, if we wish to invest 
it with the charms which belong to 
so many uninspired productions. Man 
thirsts for knowledge ; hut even his desire 
of hnowledge is not so strong as Ms enmity 
to God, and he will sooner forego the in- 



ENMITY TO GOD. 41 



dulgence of one of his most powerful na- 
tural appetites, than gratify it at the cost 
of being brought into immediate inter- 
course with his Maker. He will pursue 
truth with an unfaltering step, and an 
un slumbering eye throughout the uni- 
verse, until she enters that refulgent 
sphere illumined by the throne of God 
and of the Lamb; then, as if smitten by a 
paralysis or struck with insanity, he can 
no longer discern any form or comeliness 
in her, and she has no beauty that he 
should desire her. The moment she ar- 
rays herself in the vestments of holiness, 
she becomes as much an object of repul- 
sion as she had before been of loveliness. 
Clad in the coarsest fabrics of earth, she 
is sure of his homage; transfigured in 
the splendours of the uncreated glory, 
and his veneration is changed to hatred. 
You will not say that this sketch is 

4* 



42 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



unreal or exaggerated. It is \ indicated 
by the confessions of too many indivi- 
duals to be set aside as savouring of ex- 
travagance. The fact it assumes is one 
to be seriously pondered, viz.: the preva- 
lence among so many, even educated per- 
sons, of a positive antipathy to religious 
truth; the utter distaste which you your- 
self may feel to the reading of the Bible 
and to serious reflection on its teachings. 
Nor is this the whole truth. Connect 
with the fact just stated, the feelings 
sometimes, perhaps habitually, awakened 
in your bosom when the claims of reli- 
gion are pressed home upon you for im- 
mediate action. Are you not conscious 
on these occasions of a great repugnance 
to the subject? Are you not apt to feel 
that religion would interfere with your 
enjoyments? Do you not blend with it 
ideas of austerity and gloom, and treat 



ANTIPATHY TO THE BIBLE. 43 



it as you would some impending cala- 
mity which, since it could not be eluded 
altogether, you would avert as long 
as possible, and then submit to it with 
such resignation as you might command ? 
And is it not under the influence of 
sentiments like these, that you so often 
put the subject away from you, and re- 
fuse even to consider it? 



44 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



CHAPTER II. 

ILLUSIYE PLEAS EXAMINED. 

Here, then, there is a palpable want 
of congruity between religion and your 
feelings. Is the fault with you or with 
religion? Is religion that harsh, cheer- 
less, morose system which you have 
imagined it to be, or are your faculties 
so disordered that you have entirely 
mistaken its nature? For the sake of 
argument, let us assume that you are 
right in your estimate of religion. Let 
us suppose that it is a scheme of faith 
and morals adverse to present enjoy- 
ment; that it forbids even what we are 
accustomed to regard as innocent plea- 
sures : that the life to which it calls us 



CHRISTIANITY OF GOD. 45 



is a gloomy life; that its paths are full 
of thorns, with only here and there a 
flower, and that whatever it may pro- 
mise for the future, it has little or no- 
thing to recommend it in so far as this 
world is concerned. 

Conceding all this, of what avail 
would it be in justifying or even ex- 
tenuating your neglect of religion ? The 
vital question is, whether Christianity is 
of God. If it is, all arguments drawn 
from its nature, with a view of discre- 
diting its claims to our obedience, must 
be inconclusive and impertinent. For 
if Christianity is true, it proposes to us 
the only method of reconciliation to 
God, and the only means by which we 
can escape everlasting torments. What 
could be more idle, then, than to talk 
of the " inconveniences and trials" to 
which the reception of its doctrines 



46 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



might subject us? If a profession of 
Christianity even involved imminent 
personal peril; if, as in the early days 
of the church, we were liable to be hur- 
ried off from the Lord's Supper to the 
dungeon, or the stake, — what then? Is 
the rage of them who, at most, can only 
kill the body, to be more dreaded than 
His wrath who can destroy both soul 
and body in hell? Make the way to 
heaven as rough and thorny as you 
choose; multiply its obstacles; magnify 
its dangers ; add any practicable amount 
of actual suffering, as the indispensable 
portion of every traveller, — so it really 
conducts to heaven, all these hinder- 
ances combined are not of the weight 
of a grain of sand, contemplated in their 
bearing upon the question, " What ought 
I to do?" The instant you concede the 
truth of the Bible, you are shut up to a 



BLESSINGS OF RELIGION. 47 



foregone conclusion. It is at once the 
height of arrogance, and the extreme of 
folly, to admit that God has spoken to 
us, and then to palter about u consider- 
ing and obeying" his commands, be- 
cause the tone of them does not suit us, 
or obedience to them may expose us to 
trouble. 

But we can stand upon firmer ground 
than this. The concession just made is 
a sheer gratuity. Eeligion is no such 
gloomy and prison-like system. Its mis- 
sion in our world is one of God-like 
beneficence. Its hands are full of bless- 
ings. Its paths are peace. It confers 
substantial happiness here, as well as 
a title to perfect and eternal happiness 
hereafter. The evidences of this are 
within your reach. They are to be 
found in the Bible itself, and in the 
united testimony of all who have had 



48 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



experience of its benefits. Not indeed 
that a religious life involves no difficul- 
ties. It is justly represented as a war- 
fare — an exterminating warfare. It 
must needs be a road somewhat rough 
and dangerous which leads from a re- 
volted world to heaven. But the very 
fact that you can conceive of this system 
as one hostile to your present enjoyment, 
and adapted to throw the sombre hues 
of the grave over all that is bright and 
cheerful in life, illustrates the evil ten- 
dency of your inconsideration. You are 
repelled from the consideration of it be- 
cause it wears to your eye so lowering 
an aspect. If you must barter away 
your cheerfulness, you will at least post- 
pone the sacrifice as long as possible. 

Do you not believe that God is a 
Being ol infinite goodness and mercy, 
and that he delights, not in the misery, 






RELIGION WRONGED. 49 



out in the happiness of his creatures? 
Does not this very scheme of religion, 
about which' we are arguing, attest his 
concern for our welfare, in a manner 
adapted to silence all doubts and extin- 
guish all skepticism? Is the sentiment 
to be tolerated for one moment, that he 
who so loved the world, as to give his 
only-begotten Son to die for it, could 
frame a system of religion, in any the 
least particular unfavourable to our well- 
being? Can you persuade yourself, that 
he who spared not his own Son, but 
delivered him up for us all, will not 
with him also freely give us all things? 

Whence, then, these most unwarrant- 
able suspicions about the proper ef- 
fects of religion? Whence these in* 
jurious prejudices against it, as being 
adverse to rational and elevated hap- 
piness? If, as you admit, it bears God's 

5 



50 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



image and superscription, how can 
you think of it as a sour and ascetic 
scheme, or suppose it would require of 
you any sacrifice which is not demanded 
by your own good? If you will but rea- 
son a little on the subject, you will find 
ample cause to distrust your impressions 
as to its nature, as you will certainly 
see both the injustice and the impolicy 
of being deterred by such a prejudice, 
from a careful consideration of its claims. 
Nay, if you are disposed to deal honestly 
with yourself, you will find material for 
sober reflection, in the very fact that re- 
ligion should wear this forbidding guise; 
that adapted and intended, as your rea- 
son no less than revelation assures you 
it must be, to comfort and bless you, it 
should suggest to your minds only 
images of sadness or terror. How un- 
avoidable the presumption, that you 



IMBECILE REASONING. 51 



must be labouring under some gross hal- 
lucination; that some violent disease 
has impaired aiid confounded youi 
faculties; that the defects you attribute 
to religion are in your own character ; 
and that your repugnance to it is a 
startling proof, how much you stand in 
need of its healing power. 

This neglect of it, however, is to be but 
temporary. You find a shelter from the 
reproaches of the Bible, and of your own 
conscience, in the reflection that by-and- 
by the subject shall be considered ; that 
you will take it up, and make amends, 
by a thorough examination, for your 
present indifference to it. But why 
should you do this? Why not dismiss 
the subject altogether? If it is so un- 
welcome to you, why let it project its 
dark shadows athwart your future path, 
and obscure the serenity of your declin 



52 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



ing years? You are ready with your 
answer : — "It would be madness to 
banish finally a subject which involves 
my well-being for eternity. I must at- 
tend to it sooner or later, or be lost for- 
ever." 

Will you do yourself the justice to 
weigh the import of this answer? You 
"must consider the subject of religion 
hereafter, because it involves your well- 
being for eternity." Give me leave to 
put this in another form, without alter- 
ing the sense. " On my reception or re- 
jection of the gospel offer, is suspended 
my everlasting destiny. If, through the 
mercy and grace of God, I embrace it, I 
shall at my death ascend to heaven, and 
be perfectly holy and happy forever. If 
I refuse or neglect to embrace it, I must, 
at death, be cast into outer darkness. 
Hell will be my home; the devils and 



IMBECILE REASONING. 53 



lost spirits my companions; I must lie 
down in the unquenchable fire, and en- 
dure the gnawings of the worm that 
never dies. This doom may overtake 
me at any moment, since nothing is more 
precarious than life. Tlierefore, in order 
to escape so horrible a destiny, I must 
hereafter, at some undefined period, 
when my antipathy to religion shall 
have vanished, give attention to the 
subject, and make preparation for a 
change of worlds!" Such is the import 
of your language, without the slightest 
colouring. And in what light does it 
present your inconsideration ? Did you 
ever hear of so impotent a conclusion, 
from such majestic premises? Were 
logic and reason ever before so put 
to shame? Were eternal things ever 
treated with such grave trifling? You 
will consider of religion hereafter, be- 

5* 



54 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



cause if you die, (which you may do 
to-day,) without having attended to it, 
you are lost beyond redemption ! And 
in this purpose you rest, simply from 
"the want of a disposition" to apply 
your mind to the subject now. You 
"feel no interest" in the matter at pre- 
sent, and you must wait until you do; 
when that auspicious day arrives, that 
you are disposed to hear what God has 
to say to you, you will listen to his com- 
munications ! 

Reference has already been made to 
the indignity which this conduct casts 
upon the Supreme Being. Not to re- 
vert to that topic here, do you not per- 
ceive, in the state of feeling in question, 
a most cogent argument why you should 
bring your mind into instant and ear- 
nest contact with the gospel? The 
greater your aversion to this, the more 



ALIENATION FROM GOD. 55 



palpable your need of it. This aversion 
is the vital principle of the malady you 
are seized with, and for which the gos- 
pel is the only antidote. It stands forth, 
a convincing and solemn memento of 
that violent disjunction between your 
soul and God, which can be removed 
only through your sincere repentance 
and faith in the Redeemer. And when 
you talk of waiting until you feel suf- 
ficient "interest" in the matter to give 
heed to it, can you suppose that the 
course you are pursuing is adapted to 
bring about this desired change in your 
feelings? Will your love of the world 
be diminished, by a continued devotion 
to the world? Will the power of sin 
over you be abated by indulgence in 
sin? Will your wayward passions and 
attachments be weakened by gratifica- 
tion ? " Are you so thoughtless or un- 



56 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



knowing, as to fancy that a long course 
of estrangement from your higher inte- 
rest, of aversion to it, of resistance 
against its claims, of suppression of the 
remonstrances of conscience in its be- 
half, is to leave you in a kind of mental 
state, impartial to admit at length the 
conviction, that now it is high time, and 
easily convertible into a Christian spirit? 
Consider that all this time you are form- 
ing the habits, which, when inveterately 
established, will either be invincibly 
upon you through life, or require a 
mighty wrench to emancipate you. 
This refusal to think; this revolting 
from any attempt at self-examination; 
this averting of your attention from 
serious books; this declining to seek the 
Divine favour and assistance by prayer; 
this projecting of schemes bearing no 
regard to that favour, and which are not 



TYRANNY OF HABIT. 57 



to need that assistance; this eagerness 
to seize each transitory pleasure; this 
preference of companions, who, perhaps, 
would like you the worse, if they 
thought you feared God, or cared for 
your eternal welfare; — these disposi- 
tions, prolonged in a succession of your 
willing acquiescences in them, will grow 
into a settled constitution of your soul, 
which will thus become its own inexora- 
ble tyrant. The habit so forming will 
draw in to it all the affections, the work- 
ings of imagination, and the trains of 
thought; will so possess itself of them, 
that in it alone they will live, and 
move, and have their being. It will 
have a strong, unremitting propensity to 
grow entire, so as to leave nothing un- 
preoccupied in the mind, for any oppos- 
ing agent to take hold on, in order to 
counteract it, as if it were instinctively 



58 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



apprehensive of the effect of protests 
from conscience, or visitings from the 
powers of heaven, or intimations from 
the realm of death; and, therefore, in- 
tent on forming the sentiments of the 
soul to such a consistence and coalition, 
as shall leave none of them free to de- 
sert at the voice of these summoners."* 
It is, indeed, a monstrous deception 
you practise upon yourself, when you 
fancy that a course of implicit submis- 
sion to these earth-born propensities 
will ultimately generate a disposition to 
break away from the bondage they im- 
pose. As well might the inebriate pre- 
tend that prolonged indulgence in his 
cups would by-and-by evolve a disgust 
for the poison which is consuming him; 
or the husbandman, that a thorough 

* Foster. 



THE GRAND HINDERANCE. 59 



seeding his plantation with thistles, 
would guarantee a generous harvest of 
grain. It is a strange way of insuring 
the renovation of your character, to 
foster principles and habits which are in 
flagrant antagonism to all holiness. These 
very habits and principles constitute the 
grand hinderance to your salvation now ; 
they operate with such potency as even 
to inspire an antipathy to all reflection on 
your spiritual state. By what alchemy 
are they to be transmuted into monitors 
to repentance and stimulants to a holy 
life ? How is an ever-increasing aliena- 
tion from God to facilitate your return to 
him? If you have no inclination to re- 
turn now, why should you have when 
the distance which separates you from 
him has been indefinitely increased? 

The conclusions to which so many 
lines of abstract argument conduct us, 



60 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



may be tested by observation and ex- 
perience. You will be able, without 
going beyond the sphere of your daily 
walks, to find individuals who have 
long occupied the ground you stand 
upon. Twenty, thirty, forty years ago, 
when pressed with the obligation of im- 
mediate repentance, they resisted and 
deferred it on the ground that they 
then "felt no disposition" to consider it. 
They had the full purpose of complying 
with it, but deemed it advisable to wait 
until their indifference had passed away. 
Has it passed away, or are they waiting 
still? To your eyes, however it may 
be to their own, the case is too plain 
and too affecting to need an interpreter. 
You see how, during all this period, 
they have been heaping up obstacles 
between themselves and heaven. By a 
silent and gradual process, they have 



OBSERVATION. 01 



invigorated their secular principles, and 
become more completely saturated with 
the spirit of the world. The net-work 
of earthly passions and projects which 
encloses them, once so fragile, is intri- 
cate and compact. Avenues to their 
consciences, which were once open, are 
shut up. They are less sensitive to the 
appeals of Scripture. It is more difficult 
to arouse them to wholesome meditation 
upon their prospects for eternity. They 
have the same latent intention of re- 
pentance; but when you look at the 
superincumbent mass of earthliness and 
sin which has accumulated upon it, you 
feel that nothing short of a miracle can 
ever vitalize it, so as to convert the pur- 
pose to repent into actual repentance. 

All this is as clear as the meridian 
sun to your eyes, in respect to many 
persons whom you have seen growing 

6 



62 THE iiREAT QUESTION. 



old or approximating to old age in the 
neglect of religion. And is there not 
something still nearer home to corrobo- 
rate it? Can you not refer to a period in 
your own experience, when the ascend- 
ency of the world over you was less 
complete than it is now? Has the re- 
sult justified your calculation, that the 
lapse of time would abate your disincli- 
nation to serious thought? Is your re- 
pugnance to prayer and to the study of 
the Scriptures diminished? Do you find 
it more difficult to ward off the shafts 
of divine truth, as they reach you in the 
sanctuary? Have you a keener sense of 
the vanity of earth, and a growing dispo- 
sition to engage in the service of God? Or 
is the reverse of all this true ? Is the tide 
of worldliness rising higher and higher, 
and gradually filling up every interstice 
of your heart? Has the broad current 



TESTS OF EXPERIENCE. 63 



of your thoughts and affections become 
thoroughly impregnated with a mere 
earthly spirit? Are you living for this 
world alone? Are your avocations, 
your plans, your pleasures, your hopes, 
your associations, absorbed with the 
things which are seen and temporal, to 
the exclusion of the things which are 
unseen and eternal? And when, in 
some better moment, a stroke of Provi- 
dence, a sermon, or some other agency 
happens to disturb your spiritual torpor, 
and awaken a feeling of remorse and un- 
easiness, do you find it a lighter task 
than it once was to smother these self- 
reproaches and resume your wonted 
levity? Surely, then, you can interpret 
these omens also. You require no pro- 
phet from heaven to assure you that 
they bear the same evil significancy 
with the kindred portents you so readily 



64 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



decipher in the case of your friends and 
neighbours. They are the handwriting 
on the wall over-against you; and they 
admonish you, in no ambiguous sym- 
bols, of impending destruction, if you 
go on trusting to a life of worldliness 
to extinguish your repugnance to the 
gospel. 

There is also implied, in this inconsi- 
deration, a very inadequate conception 
of the work we have to do, and of the 
time demanded to do it properly. We 
find in the Bible expressions like these : 
" Strive to enter in at the strait gate." 
" Giving all diligence, make your calling 
and election sure." " He that endureth 
to the end shall be saved." "If the 
righteous scarcely be saved, where shall 
the ungodly and the sinner appear?" 
Salvation, then, is a difficult work. It 
is a great thing to be a Christian. Co- 



THE MIGHTY CONFLICT. 65 



lossal obstructions bar the way to hea- 
ven. Every step has its dangers. 

" 'Tis but a few that find the gate, 
While crowds mistake and die." 

Could we see things as they are, — 
the deliverance of a soul from spiritual 
death, its liberation from the bondage 
of Satan, its enfranchisement with the 
rights and privileges of Christ's king- 
dom, its gradual transformation into 
the divine image, its triumph over all 
its enemies, and its final entrance into 
the realms of glory, we should be no less 
awe-struck with the difficulty and gran- 
deur of this achievement, than filled 
with admiration at the boundless wis- 
dom, power, and grace displayed in 
accomplishing it. Marathon and Ther- 
mopylae, Trafalgar and Waterloo, the 
proudest of earth's battle-fields, where- 

6* 



66 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



soever they may be found, dwindle into 
insignificance when compared with the 
mighty conflict involved in the salvation 
of a single individual. Yet this sub- 
lime and most arduous undertaking, 
you would thrust into a mere corner 
of human life. Instead of making every 
thing give way to it, you allow every 
thing to take precedence of it. You 
make it wait on business, on study, on 
pleasure, on social engagements, on in- 
dolence, on indifference. There is ab- 
solutely nothing in life, however insig- 
nificant and contemptible, that this vast 
interest, which comprehends eternity in 
its issue, is not, with one person or 
another, compelled to wait on it. Life 
were short enough to do it justice, had 
you taken it up with the dawn of your 
moral agency and prosecuted it until 
you fell asleep in death. But it has 



INFATUATED CONDUCT. 6T 



been pushed along, year after year, — the 
difficulty of the work increasing as the 
space for performing it has been di- 
minished,— until to-day you have more 
work to do and less time to do it in, than 
you ever had before. Nay, you are pos- 
sibly even now parleying with yourself 
whether you shall not postpone its 
claims still longer. Does it at all occur 
to you what these questions are, which 
you adjourn with so fatal a facility to 
all the trivialities of the passing mo- 
ment, which you even dismiss because 
you happen not to be in a mood to con- 
sider them ? Alas ! it is this very incon- 
sideration which betrays you into the 
infatuated course we are deploring. It 
is not that you do not know, but be- 
cause you do not consider that it is your 
own salvation which is at stake. It is 
the question, " How may I escape from 



68 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



hell and fly to heaven?" that you are 
forcing into some little parenthesis of 
your little future, — handing it over, per 
adventure, to the puerilities of a mise- 
rable dotage, or to the weakness, the 
sufferings, and the dismay of an unex- 
pected death-bed. And wherefore? Is 
there any invincible necessity laid upon 
you to submit to this strange mal-ad- 
justment of your concerns, this transfer 
of the very greatest and most moment- 
ous of your affairs, to the very worst 
season in your whole life for attending 
to them? No, you might just as well — 
yea, ten thousand times better — provide 
for these interests sooner. But you 
must needs use the vigour of your facul- 
ties and the flower of your time for 
other ends. This world is to be looked 
after. First the body, then the soul. 
Time first, eternity afterward. Thus 



A SAD INVERSION. 69 



the soul is robbed and ruined. What 
ought to be the prime business of life is 
delayed till the spark of life is about 
going out. What ought to engross all 
the powers of mind and body throughout 
the entire limit of our mortal probation, 
is assigned to the hapless decrepitude of 
old age. With the ocean of eternity 
before you, instead of employing the 
time God has given you in making pre- 
paration for your endless voyage, you 
waste it upon comparative trifles, and 
leave your whole preparation to the mo- 
ment when you may be summoned to 
embark! This is not the design, but 
this is, in every instance of delay, the 
possible, as it is in innumerable in- 
stances the actual, result. To neglect 
to prepare to-day, abridges by so much 
your time and opportunity for prepar- 
ing, and may preclude it altogether. 



70 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



You will not admit this. You have 
no thought of going into eternity unpre- 
pared. You almost resent the sugges- 
tion that you may be so infatuated as to 
reserve for it only the closing days or 
hours of life. But if this is not your 
purpose, what is? If you are resolved 
not to remit the serious consideration of 
religion to a death-bed, when is it to be 
taken up ? Is the day marked in your 
diary? Is the purpose drawn up and 
put on file with the plans you have 
framed respecting your worldly affairs? 
If you were pressed to answer these 
questions, would not the humiliating 
confession be extorted from you, that 
this is a matter about which you have 
no plan; that while every possible ar- 
rangement is made concerning your 
earthly interests, you have fixed upon 
no period for looking after your immor- 



PROSPECTIVE REPENTANCE. 71 



tal interests; that you have, in fact, 
simply a general purpose of making 
your peace with God; but whether it is 
to be undertaken on this day twelve- 
month, or this day ten years, or at any 
other specific date, is a point you have 
not settled. 

Now, on this admission, it is no in- 
justice to you to allege that you are 
virtually remitting this great interest to 
your death-bed. A merciful God may 
interpose and prevent this procrastina- 
tion ; but, in so far as you are concerned, 
there is every probability that it will be 
delayed until the prospect of a speedy 
dissolution forces it upon your attention. 
There are thousands of individuals every 
year who are brought to this result by 
the identical process through which you 
are passing. Relying through life on a 
vague and delusive purpose of embrac- 



72 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



ing the gospel offer "at some period/' 
they are astonished, at length, (they 
need not have been, for it was precisely 
what they might have expected,) to find 
themselves grappling with death without 
out any equipment for the encounter. 
Often are individuals of this kind heard 
bemoaning their folly and criminality, 
waking up to the consciousness that it 
is a sad time to prepare for eternity, 
when the blood is chilling in the arte- 
ries, and the affrighted soul is waiting, 
trembling and agonized, for the walls of 
its clay tenement to fall and leave it 
houseless, portionless, hopeless, under 
the piercing gaze of an injured and 
avenging God ! And why may it not be 
so with you? You are treading the 
same path they trod. You are trusting 
to the same visionary hopes. You are 
vindicating or excusing your inconsidera- 



RESULTS OF PROCRASTINATION. 73 



tion by the same gossamer-like apologies. 
Like you, they "felt no interest" in re- 
ligion, and had too little energy to bring 
themselves to the examination of it. 
Like you, they were resolved to attend 
to it long before death should summon 
them away. Like you, they permitted 
one earthly object and pursuit after an- 
other to beguile their time and steal 
away their affections. Like you, they 
grew insensibly hardened by this course 
of worldliness and this habitual resist- 
ance to divine truth. And will it be 
surprising, if, having thus cast in your 
lot with them through so large a part 
of the way, you should go on with them 
to the close, and have your dying mo- 
ments harassed with the gloom and the 
consternation which marked their pas- 
sage into eternity? 

But why argue this point? Every 

7 



74 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



thing is conceded, when you admit, 
what no one has the presumption to 
deny, that death may come for you at 
any moment; that your winding-sheet 
may even now be in the fullers hands ; 
and the shaft on its unerring flight, 
which is to transfix your heart. This 
fact alone might suffice to show you, 
that, in neglecting to consider the claims 
of religion, you are putting your ever- 
lasting all in jeopardy; that a single 
day's delay may involve an eternity of 
unavailing remorse and sorrow. 

Here then let me pause long enough 
to inquire whether it is possible for you, 
even to extenuate the guilt and folly of 
this inconsideration, by any of those 
pleas or pretexts which have hitherto 
satisfied you. Eemember that when 
God charges this neglect upon you as a 
sin, it is your own happiness, no less 



WHY IT IS NEGLECTED. 



than his sovereignty , which is implicated 
in the allegation. The crime you are 
guilty of is a crime against your own 
rational and immortal nature. You 
ought to be happy. You might be 
happy. God requires you to be happy; 
and has placed the means within your 
reach, at an infinite cost to himself, 
though as free as the air of heaven to 
you. Yet you decline his bounty. You 
even refuse to " consider" the sublime 
and glorious scheme through which he 
proposes it to you. And the barrier 
behind which you shelter yourself when 
this conduct is brought home to you as 
a sin, is that "your feelings are not in- 
terested in the matter/' and therefore 
you cannot attend to it. Why should 
they be interested unless you have tried 
to have them so? Suppose you deal 
with this subject aS you would deal 



76 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



with a question of commerce or a ques- 
tion of history, with a branch of science 
or a personal accomplishment. Bring 
your mind to the patient study of the 
Bible. Commune with your own heart. 
Call upon God in prayer. Rouse your- 
self from your lethargy. Feel that re- 
ligion is a reality ; and that your soul is 
to be saved through the blood of the 
cross, or to perish eternally. Do this 
and see whether you cannot surmount 
this fearful torpor which threatens to 
destroy you forever. 



POSTPONED FOR THE PRESENT. 77 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PRETEXTS FOR NEGLECTING RELIGION 
IRRATIONAL AND SORDID. 

I have shown, that where there is an 
habitual indisposition to consider the 
claims of religion, that duty is likely to 
be remitted to a death-bed. It is proper, 
in this connection, to call your attention 
to the specific feeling which usually 
prompts to this delay. That feeling is, 
that there is no actual necessity, on the 
score of personal safety, for 'becoming 
religious' just now, and therefore it may 
be postponed for the present without 
hazard. If this course involved mani- 
fest and palpable danger, you would 

7* 



78 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



overcome your reluctance, and sit down 
to the careful examination of the sub- 
ject. But as you see no danger, a little 
delay cannot be an evil of much mo- 
ment. 

Here, then, the whole question, whether 
religion shall receive your instant atten- 
tion, is made to hinge on the point, 
whether it will put you in jeopardy to 
refuse. The demand which religion 
makes of you is, that you cease to do 
evil, and learn to do well; that you re- 
pent of your sins, and render to your 
Creator and Preserver that homage and 
obedience which are his due; that you 
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for par- 
don, and walk henceforward in the way 
of his commands. It exacts of you no 
sacrifice; lays upon you no service; ap- 
points you to no trial, which is not for 
your own good. It proffers you the 



god's mercy abused. 79 



protection and friendship of God, all 
needful succours and consolations in this 
world, and everlasting felicity and glory 
hereafter. These are the proposals reli- 
gion makes to you ; and it is in pondering 
such proposals, and to guide you in your 
disposition of them, that you raise the 
question, "Can I reject them for a time, 
without putting myself in peril? or, 
does my safety require me to accept 
them now?" You cannot fail, on a mo- 
ment's reflection, to be struck with the 
utter want here indicated, of any due 
appreciation of the blessings tendered 
you, or any perception of the relations 
subsisting between the parties to this 
transaction. It might be supposed, with 
our instinctive and irrepressible desire 
of happiness, that blessings like these 
would be eagerly seized the moment 
they were placed Avithin our reach ; that 



80 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



the mere possibility of securing them 
would make any individual of our race 
willing to put forth the most unwearied 
exertions, and to submit to the greatest 
hardships. But, instead of this, we have 
the extraordinary spectacle presented to 
us, (nay, we all in turn present this 
spectacle,) of rebels consulting whether 
they can, with prudence, defer acceding 
to an offer of clemency from their Sove- 
reign; of lost sinners, calculating how 
long it will be safe for them to go on in 
sin, before consenting to a free tender of 
salvation! In all this procrastination 
and paltering, the authority and rights 
of Jehovah are ignored; duty is set at 
defiance; the claims of reverence and 
gratitude are trampled in the dust; 
nothing is thought of, but the personal 
immunity of the transgressor. As long 
as he can do without God, he will; when 



MERCENARY CONDUCT. 81 



dangers thicken, and death impends, he 
will seek his aid. 

To say that the principle of action 
here assumed would excite universal 
abhorrence if carried into any depart- 
ment of secular or social life, is only to 
give utterance to a sentiment in which 
every generous mind must acquiesce. 
What reason is there, what fitness, in 
suspending our loyalty to God on his 
toleration of our sins; in resolving to 
disobey him, just so long as we fancy he 
will restrain his vengeance, and not cut 
us down in our impiety ? No honoura- 
ble man would deal thus with his neigh- 
bour, or with the government under 
which he lives. Does it sanctify a sor- 
did principle that we have adopted it, 
not in our intercourse with our fellow- 
creatures, but in our conduct toward 
God? Are the same actions mercenary, 



82 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



when they have respect to a creature; 
and innocent, not to say commendable, 
when they terminate on the Creator? 

The more this is pondered, the more 
clearly will it be seen, that in the scheme 
of life we are considering, the one ele- 
ment of personal safety is made to sub- 
serve the most unwarrantable and un- 
worthy purposes. 

It might be opportune to remark, that 
it is no less blind than perverse; that 
in seeking its own ends by its own 
means, it too commonly plucks down 
upon itself the ruin it would elude; 
and that true safety is to be found 
in doing God's will, net in resisting it. 
But waiving that topic, why surrender 
one's self to the control of this grovelling 
sentiment, as though, in our relations to 
the Deity, there were no room for any 
other? "Not knowing," says the apos- 



DIVIITE MUNIFICENCE. 83 



tie, "that the goodness of God leadeth 
thee to repentance." 

Look around you at the tokens of His 
goodness. See how he has blessed you 
in your basket and in your store, in 
your health, in your business, in your 
family, in your country, in your mani- 
fold religious privileges. Review your 
life, and see how he has watched over 
you from childhood to this hour, with 
paternal affection; how often he has 
interposed to rescue you from difficulty 
or danger; and in how many forms he 
has carried forward his beneficent minis- 
trations toward you. Is there no sus- 
ceptibility in your breast, to which kind- 
ness like this appeals; no chord there 
which vibrates when these mercies pass 
in review before you? And when to 
these blessings you superadd the infi- 
nitely higher blessings of redemption, 



84 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



purchased with " blood divine/' are you 
still unmoved? Can nothing stir that 
leaden torpor, that Dead Sea stagnation, 
within, but the sense of impending 
wrath? Has gratitude no place there? 
Shall your bosom thrill with thankful- 
ness whenever you receive the most 
trivial kindness from a fellow-creature, 
and be unimpressed by all the affluence 
of that bounty which Jehovah is lavish- 
ing upon you? You will not say that 
this is right. 

You will admit that it is all wrong. 
If you have the least spark of magna- 
nimity, the slightest leaven of honour- 
able and manly feeling, you will be 
abashed when you reflect on the princi- 
ple which governs you in your inter- 
course with a Benefactor to whom you 
owe such infinite obligations. 

In recording, some time since, the 



THE DYING STATESMAN. 85 



decease of a very distinguished states- 
man, the newspapers stated that he was 
much occupied during his illness with 
the subject of religion; that he con- 
versed often with the ministers of the 
gospel; avowed his cordial reception oi 
the Christian faith, and in this state of 
mind passed into eternity. The narra- 
tive was in terms which implied that 
his preparation for death had been post- 
poned until he was taken sick; and, 
indeed, it was well known, that however 
correct he might have been in his gene- 
ral deportment, he had never up to that 
time manifested any personal interest 
in religion. In all this, he was the 
representative of a very numerous body 
of persons ; for similar examples are con- 
stantly occurring in every walk of life. 

Now, in looking at a scene like this, 
every one must commend this solicitude 

8 



86 THE GREAT QUESTION. 

about the soul, even though it has been 
so long delayed. Far better to repent 
with the dying malefactor than not to 
repent at all. Better to strive to enter 
in at the strait gate at the eleventh 
hour, — yes, better even to strive and 
fail, than to die in utter unconcern and 
stupidity. But contemplate this specta- 
cle in another aspect. Here is a man 
(the case occurs daily) forty, fifty, possi- 
bly sixty years of age. He has spent 
his life in the bosom of a Christian com- 
munity. Every day has come to him 
freighted with blessings. He has al- 
ways had the Bible within his reach. 
He has weekly heard, or might have 
heard, the preaching of the gospel. God 
has called him to repentance in in- 
numerable ways. His duty has been 
set before him in the clearest manner. 
He has been reasoned with, warned, 



NO INFREQUENT CASE. 87 



exhorted, entreated to make his peace 
with God, and to give his influence to 
religion. But he has steadily refused. 
He has, possibly, been unwilling even 
to consider the claims of God upon him. 
Absorbed with other things, carried 
away by the lust of the flesh, the lust 
of the eyes, and the pride of life, he has 
sought his own ends, lived only for the 
world, and left Christianity to fight its 
own battles, careless whether they ter- 
minated in victory or defeat. Disease 
lays its iron grasp upon this proud 
votary of the world, and conducts him 
into that chamber from which he is 
never to come forth until his remains 
are carried to their last resting-place. 
Assured by his physicians (and not 
till then) of the serious nature of his 
malady, he begins to consider his ways. 
He calls for the Bible; so long neglected 



88 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



that he knows not where to read. He 
procures other religious books, which 
may aid him in getting clearer views of 
the way of life. He sends for a Chris- 
tian friend or pastor to counsel him, and 
tell him what he must do to be saved. 
He is frequent and earnest in his sup- 
plications for the Divine mercy. And 
thus he is hastening his preparation for 
a change of worlds. In all this, he is 
acting wisely. But what a miserable 
return is he making to God! His 
health, time, talents, property, influence, 
all have been expended upon selfish and 
earthly objects; and now that he dare 
not and cannot cleave to these any 
longer, he will turn to God! No love 
to God prompts him, no gratitude, no 
ingenuous sentiment of contrition, no 
dissatisfaction with the world: if he 
could with safety, he would cling to his 



A BASE RETURN. 89 



idol still. Death is at the door: this 
is the sole secret of his anxiety. He 
comes to dedicate to his Maker his 
shattered powers, and the few hours 
that may remain to him, simply because, 
if he neglects this, a terrible retribution 
will presently overtake him. 

You see, as distinctly as I can, the 
true tenor of this transaction. But "it 
is not to be thus with you." You have 
too much elevation of character to think 
of putting the Deity off with so paltry 
an offering. You are not ready to con- 
sider the subject of religion now, but 
you fully purpose to do it before you are 
prostrated with a mortal disease. 

Without impugning the sincerity of 
this intention, it may be allowed me to 
ask, whether the principle it proceeds 
upon is essentially better than the one 
exemplified in the case just considered. 

8* 



90 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



It is the prayer of Augustine over again : 
"Lord, convert me; but not yet!" It 
recognises the obligation to serve him, 
but practically denies his claim to your 
whole time, and your entire influence. 
It assumes that your first duty is to the 
world; and that it will be enough if you 
devote yourself to God after you shall, 
for an indefinite period, have lived for 
the world. You cannot be ignorant, 
that where this ground is taken, the 
common result is substantially the same 
as in the example already noted: the 
lion's share goes to the world, — the 
meager remnant, if any, to God. It is, 
in any event, a deliberate determination 
to abridge your means and opportunities 
of doing his will and promoting his glory. 
Can this be justified? Can it be ex- 
tenuated? Is life, fleeting, evanescent 
life, too long a period to be employed 



UNDIVIDED HOMAGE DUE TO GOD 91 



in serving the Being who bestowed life 
upon you? Would your undivided 
homage be too opulent a return for the 
favours you have received from him? 
Is it the acknowledgment which your 
own reason and conscience assure you 
is befitting the relations you sustain to 
him, to exhaust the vigour of your 
faculties in the prosecution of mere 
earthly objects, and appropriate to him 
only your days of decline and inactivity, 
if not of decrepitude? Conceding that 
you may live to old age, and that death 
will then await your plenary preparar 
tion for his summons; how much more 
honourable would it be to come now, 
and lay your thrift and enterprise, your 
genial affections and noble aspirations 
upon his altar, than to put Him off with 
the impoverished refuse of a life of sin 
and folly ! 



92 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Besides, how erroneous and unworthy 
a conception of religion is that involved 
in this and its affiliated schemes of life ! 
In a company of military officers, (one 
of whom was a personal friend of the 
writer's,) the question one day came up, 
whether it was expedient to permit 
clergymen to visit the sick. Not to re- 
cite the other opinions, "My notion," 
said the surgeon of the corps, "is, that 
such visits are proper in certain circum- 
stances. When the physician has done 
all he can for a man, and gives him up, 
then, I think, it is proper to send for 
the clergyman." You will smile at the 
ignorance and irrationality displayed in 
this remark; but it is not very much 
aside from the popular idea of religion. 
If you will analyze the schemes which 
you are cherishing, you will probably 
find that religion is contemplated rather 



RELIGION DISPARAGED. 93 



as a provision for death than a chart of 
life ; much more as a bridge, over which 
we are to pass into heaven, than as a 
highway, along which we are to travel 
through this world. The feeling is, "I 
cannot die without religion, but I can 
live without it." And so you think it 
very well for the infirm, and the aged, 
and invalids of every sort to become 
religious; but there is no. reason why 
the hearty and vigorous, who are en- 
gaged in active duties, should be in 
haste about it. In other words, there 
is no reason why you should not sacri- 
fice all the sound and the fat of your 
flock to mammon, and put God off with 
the lame, and the blind, and the sick. 
There is no reason why you should not 
expend the energies of your being upon 
yourselves, and dedicate your withered 
faculties to your Creator. 



94 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



This is not Christianity. Religion, 
it is true, is rich in its consolations, and 
supplies our only adequate support in 
sickness and trouble. But it is no less 
a scheme of duty than a means of com- 
fort. It was not merely nor mainly to 
provide comfort for his people that Christ 
died, but to make them holy; not sim- 
ply that they might get to heaven them- 
selves, but that they might help others 
in getting there also. He challenges 
our undivided allegiance. He insists 
upon the subjugation of all our powers 
and passions to his will; upon the tho- 
rough extirpation of our sinful princi- 
ples and habits, and the gradual mould- 
ing of our whole characters into his 
image. He demands that we serve him 
in our several stations and relations; 
that we be governed by the Scripture 
code of morals; that we subordinate 



LIFE THE VESTIBULE TO ETERNITY. 95 



every earthly pursuit to his glory, and 
the welfare of his kingdom; and that, 
in our respective spheres, we do our 
best to maintain the character implied 
in those expressive emblems, "Ye are 
the light of the world;" "Ye are the 
salt of the earth." Our own good re- 
quires this. The present life is the 
vestibule to eternity. We are here to 
be trained for a higher stage of being. 
It is a great achievement to prepare a 
race so depraved for so lofty a destiny. 
It must needs be (unless God should 
choose to work a miracle) a tedious and 
painful process to fit such creatures as 
we are for citizenship in the New Jeru- 
salem. It is a process which may well 
fill up the brief span of human life, 
and which it were gross infatuation to 
postpone to any other interest what- 
ever. 



96 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Keligion comprehends this wise and 
needful tutelage. It exerts its preroga- 
tive over the entire range of human life, 
from the cradle to the grave; from the 
most subtle purpose that lurks in the 
innermost chambers of the heart, to 
the sublimest transactions of cabinets 
and empires. It is impossible to escape 
from its authority, even for a moment. 
It never intermits its claims upon us. 
It stoops to no compromises with the 
world. It ceases not to cry in our ears, 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and thy neighbour 
as thyself." 

Could it do less? Would it be a re- 
ligion worthy of God, or suited to man, 
if it did not thus enjoin upon every 
child of Adam supreme and constant 
loyalty to Jehovah? On what ground, 
then, would you delay a compliance 



GOP REQUIRES OUR WHOLE TIME. 97 



with its requisitions? If it is reason- 
able that God should require your whole 
time, if your own good also demands it, 
why voluntarily shorten the period you 
can devote to him, and lose the advan- 
tages to be derived from the culture of 
the Christian graces? It is surely an 
ungenerous temper which would put 
you upon grasping after the rewards 
of Christ's kingdom, without rendering 
him the stipulated service; which would 
make you eager for the crown, but un- 
willing to bear the cross. Had he dealt 
with us on this principle, the cross had 
never been set up, and we had all gone 
down to irretrievable and eternal ruin. 

And why, (to glance at another phase 
of the selfishness on which we are com- 
menting,) why should you not do your 
part in carrying forward the great and 
glorious work of human amelioration? 

9 



98 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Look over the world, and see how full 
it is of sin, and suffering, and sorrow. 
Open your eyes upon the very neigh- 
bourhood in which you dwell, and see 
whether there be not at your very door 
a broad field for the exercise of Chris- 
tian philanthropy. Survey our beloved 
country, and watch the torrents of infi- 
delity and vice that are deluging the 
land. Whose office is it to counterwork 
these pestiferous agencies? Who is to 
explore these habitations of penury and 
ignorance; to gather the young into 
Sabbath-schools and day-schools; to visit 
the prisoners; to reclaim the intem- 
perate, to circulate the Scriptures; to 
promote the due observance of the Sab- 
bath; to send missionaries to every 
destitute spot, and to aid the Church 
m sustaining her benevolent institu- 
tions? Is there any obligation resting 



RECIPROCAL ACCOUNTABILITY. 99 



upon others to do this, which does not 
rest on you? It will not do for any of 
us to ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" 
Linked together by the ties of a com- 
mon humanity, we are responsible for 
the influence we exert upon each other's 
characters and destiny. No man may 
lawfully attempt to isolate himself from 
his race, and seek only his own interest. 
God will hold us accountable for the 
good we, might have done, and have re- 
fused or neglected to do. Christianity 
needs your help in carrying forward her 
schemes of relief. There are forces 
enough arrayed against her without 
your opposition or indifference. Christ 
demands your co-operation with his peo- 
ple, in making his atonement known to 
all your fellow-creatures, and placing 
the means of grace within their reach. 
The service to which he calls you is a 



100 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



most reasonable service. His right to 
demand it is perfect. It is more worthy 
of your powers than any thing else in 
which you can engage. Is there any, 
even plausible ground on which you can 
refuse your aid in promoting the tempo- 
ral happiness and the eternal salvation 
of our ruined race? Would it be gene- 
rous even if you could do it without sin 
and without imperiling your own soul, 
to devolve all this work upon others; 
to shut your ears against the voice of 
Christ himself, through whom you hope 
yet to be saved, when he says to you, 
u Go work for me in doing good to your 
fellow-sinners; and whatsoever you do 
to the least of them for my sakq, I will 
regard it as if done to me !" 

Consider, further, that in assigning to 
the service of religion only some vague 
and precarious portion of your future 



SINNING, TO REPENT. 101 



life, (which may prove to be no portion 
of it at all,) the intermediate period, 
whether longer or shorter, is not to be a 
mere blank, without influence upon youi 
character and upon your ultimate pros- 
pects of salvation. You are disinclined 
to take up the subject of religion now, 
because you "feel no interest" in it. I 
have already shown you the fallacy of 
supposing, that the continued neglect of 
religion can generate a disposition to 
" consider" it. 

But note further, that during this un- 
defined period which is still to precede 
your anticipated repentance, you are to 
be drinking in the spirit of worldli- 
ness, and travelling to a still greater dis- 
tance from God. It seems strangely 
incongruous to talk of " repentance" 
in this connection. " Repentance" for 
what? Suppose death should not step 

9* 



102 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



in N and extinguish your hopes in the 
blackness of an eternal night; sup- 
pose you reach the point, the distant, 
shadowy, receding point, where you are 
to be sated with the world and ready to 
abandon it, what do you propose to repent 
of? If you refer to the sins of your 
past lives, it seems quite reasonable. 
There are enough of them to call for 
bitter tears and the deepest humiliation. 
It is a Tearful sight to look back over a 
whole life, and see nothing there but 
sin. There is a call for repentance. 
But your plan comprises more than this. 
You mean to repent of other sins; sins 
not yet committed. You mean to repent 
of the course you are just now entering 
upon. You form a purpose to-day not 
to consider the subject of religion now, 
with the avowed intention of mourning 
over that purpose hereafter! You de- 



STRANGE PHENOMENON- 103 



LiLie a gmcious call of the gospel, with 
the distinct avowal that you mean to 
lament that you declined it, and to ask 
God's forgiveness ! You set out upon a 
path which you declare your intention 
to retrace, every step of it, with tears! 
This is mysterious. Were you to banish 
the subject altogether, and brave the 
consequences of going into eternity with- 
out repentance or faith in Christ, you 
might at least claim the merit of consist- 
ency. But this idea of sinning only 
that you may repent; of laughing to- 
day, that you may weep over your mirth 
to-morrow; of heaping up obstacles be- 
tween your soul and heaven, that you 
may by-and-by remove them with a 
sorrowful heart; of pressing on toward 
the very verge of the bottomless pit, 
that you may at length, when the earth 
begins to cave from under your feet, fly 



104 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



back affrighted at your temerity, and 
seek the refuge you now scorn, — what 
name can be given to a career like this ! 
And if the actors in it were other 
parties, and you the spectators, what 
alternative would you feel forced upon 
you in seeking a solution of the strange 
phenomenon, but that they were either 
bereft of reason, or under the sway of a 
hostility to God and his service, so inve- 
terate as to be proof against all human 



agencies ? 



If these plain allegations have not 
offended you, you may possibly assent 
to their substantial verity. You may be 
ready to go as far as the Bible itself in 
condemning the unreasonableness and 
the criminality of your inconsideration; 
yet you may say, the fact of your in- 
difference remains. You "do not feel 
sufficient interest in the matter" to take 



THE FORMIDABLE HINDERANCE. 105 



it up, and you have no resource but to 
defer it till you do; and as this is (so 
you imagine) " a thing beyond your own 
control/' you are the more disposed to 
let it rest for the present. 

I have throughout this whole dis- 
cussion recognised the reality of this 
difficulty. Foolish as it is, criminal as 
it is, dangerous as it is, this "lack of 
interest" in religion constitutes a real 
and formidable hinderance in the way 
of a proper examination of the subject. 
But as no one will presume to plead it 
at the last day as an excuse for his im- 
penitence, so we must beware how we 
treat it with a mistaken leniency now. 
The very consciousness of this aversion 
to serious things ought to alarm you. 
It is the white spot upon the surface 
which indicates the leprosy within, and 
to neglect the symptom is to trifle with 



106 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



the disease The feeling, too, that this 
indifference is absolutely beyond your 
control, is but another effect of your 
insidious malady. It is true you cannot 
change your own heart, nor can you by 
a mere volition replace your spiritual 
apathy, with that solicitude about the 
concerns of eternity which you persuade 
yourself you would like to experience. 

But there are certain other things 
which are within the compass of your 
own volitions. If you are not practising 
self-dissimulation, if you sincerely desire 
to "become interested in religion," you 
will leave no practicable means untried 
to bring about so important an end. 
What, then, can you do? You can de- 
termine, in dependence on the help of 
God, to enter upon the careful and 
thorough examination of the subject. 
You can deal with it as you would with 



SINCERITY TESTED. 107 



any literary, political, or professional 
question which might require your at- 
tention. As a physician, you might 
have to grapple with some disease you 
had never heard of. As a lawyer, you 
might find it necessary to investigate a 
case which was extremely distasteful to 
you. As a merchant, the course of 
trade might force you into laborious 
researches in some department of com- 
merce which you had always shrunk 
from with aversion. But in these exi- 
gencies, your policy would be decisive 
and onward. You could not respect 
yourself, if you sat down quietly and 
succumbed to your feeling of indiffer- 
ence. Gathering up your mental ener- 
gies, you would assail the obnoxious 
topic with a vigorous determination to 
master it. You would make it the 
theme of your studies and reflections, 



108 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



and avail yourself of all the light that 
could be brought to bear upon it. And 
according to the established course of 
things, your antipathy would give way 
and your interest would increase as you 
prosecuted your inquest. 

What has Christianity done, that it 
is not entitled to the same treatment at 
your hands? Why should you not ex- 
tend to it the fair and manly dealing 
you mete out to any and every secular 
matter in which you are implicated? It 
is just as competent to you to employ 
your powers in examining a question of 
theology as a question of jurisprudence 
or a question of merchandise. You can 
as well set about the systematic reading 
of the Bible, as the systematic study of 
history, metaphysics, or any other branch 
of literature. You can take up some 
sterling religious book, like Hodge's Way 



MEANS TO BE USED. 109 



of Life, Wilberforce's Practical View, 
Gregory's Letters, Scott's Force of Truth, 
or Alexander's Religious Experience, 
and appropriate a specific part of every 
twenty-four hours to the private and 
thoughtful perusal of it. You can read 
with a constant reference to your own 
character. You can accompany the ex- 
ercise with fervent prayer for divine 
assistance. You can be earnest in invok- 
ing the Holy Spirit to deliver you from 
error and unbelief, to subdue your evil 
passions, to remove your indifference, to 
convince you of sin, and to lead you to 
Christ. You can avoid, in a measure, 
those scenes and associations, and put 
away those habits, which are unfavour- 
able to serious reflection. You can con- 
verse with your pastor, and frequent the 
sanctuar}^, and attend the weekly reli- 
gious services of the congregation to 
10 



110 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



which you belong, and seek the society 
of Christian people, and court such in- 
fluences as are adapted to foster your 
good purposes and enliven your appre- 
hension of "the powers and terrors" of 
the world to come. When you have 
finished one book, you can read another 
and another. You can do all this with 
the feeling that religion is no longer to 
be tampered with; that your soul is too 
precious to be enticed to hell by the 
visionary purpose of future repentance; 
that, however it may be with others, the 
time has come for you to make your 
peace with God; and that, God helping 
you, nothing shall divert you from this 
work, until you are washed from your 
sins in the blood of the cross, and made 
a new creature in Christ Jesus. 

These things you can do. These 
tnings you ought to do. And should 



THE PROBABLE RESULT. Ill 



you do them — with humility, with per- 
severance, with importunate prayer — 
can you doubt as to the result? Do you 
not believe that your indifference would 
soon vanish? that what you had under- 
taken from a sheer conviction of duty, 
would presently awaken the dormant 
sensibilities of your soul; that what was 
at first a matter of pure intellect, would 
become no less a matter of feeling; that 
religion would begin to unfold itself to 
your mind in the solemn grandeur of its 
proportions, as at once the most august 
and the most urgent of all interests ; and 
that, from being a mere denizen of earth, 
living only for the world, without a 
thought, perhaps, of God and eternity, 
you would find yourself engrossed with 
the one question, " What must I do to 
be saved?" and pressing into the king- 
dom of heaven with an energy that 



112 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



would brook no delay? Can you doubt 
that something like this would follow? 
And if you believe it would, can you re- 
fuse to make the trial? 



A SPECIOUS SUGGESTION. 113 



CHAPTER IV. 

ENCOURAGEMENTS. 

Up to this point it has been my aim 
to exhibit the true nature, and coun- 
teract the influence of that "lack of 
interest'' in the subject of religion, which 
has made you unwilling to sit down to 
the serious consideration of it. If I 
have at all succeeded in dispelling the 
sophistries and self-illusions which usu- 
ally pertain to this state of mind, and 
in showing that this indifference to 
religion is a matter very much within 
your own control, there is one specious 
suggestion which may still ensnare you. 
You may hesitate about entering upon 

the course of reading and reflection pro- 
10* 



114 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



posed to you, from a feeling of distrust 
as to the ultimate result. There are 
"difficulties" in the way, and you are 
"not certain' that you could surmount 
them. You "might set out and fail." 
Such is your conviction of the reason- 
ableness and importance of the duty 
enjoined upon you, that nothing could 
deter you from giving your attention to 
the subject, if you believed it would 
"avail;" but having no assurance on 
this point, you shrink from undertak- 
ing it. 

We can readily understand how this 
operates as a hinderance to exertion. In 
all enterprises, hopefulness is one of the 
main elements of success. It is a sad 
drudgery to toil and fag at an occupation 
which promises to reward us only with 
disappointment. Where we have no 
encouragement, we have no resolution 



RELIGION NOT FAIRLY DEALT WITH. 115 



Without the prospect of attaining an 
end, we can have no heart to pursue it. 
And as this principle applies equally to 
spiritual and to temporal objects, it is 
not surprising that persons should hesi- 
tate about addressing themselves to the 
matter of their personal salvation, if 
they see no likelihood of securing it. 

But, on the other hand, religion has 
cause to complain that it is not placed, 
as regards this point, on a footing with 
secular affairs. No politician insists 
upon certainty of success, before aspir- 
ing to a post of honour in the state. 
No physician refuses to cope with a 
disease until he is certain he can mas- 
ter it. The multifarious operations of 
commerce are all based upon contingent 
calculations. And thus with the other 
pursuits in which men engage. Nay, it 
seems to be the great and well under- 



116 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



stood law of human enterprises, that 
they cannot have, beforehand, any cer- 
tain warrant of success; and doubtless 
this is of most wise and beneficent design, 
and is adjusted to the secret springs of 
human action so as to insure their most 
healthful and efficient exercise. Nor 
does it, in any well-constituted mind, 
operate as a discouragement to exertion, 
while it prompts us to the diligent use of 
means in the spirit of humble dependence, 
and enhances the joy of success. With 
what propriety can we demand a measure 
of certainty, in seeking our salvation, 
which we should pronounce very unrea- 
sonable in seeking fame or fortune ? Why 
be disheartened, where the soul is con- 
cerned, with obstacles which would only 
sharpen the appetite and stimulate ambi- 
tion, if it were a question of property, or 
a question of science ? One might sup- 



CONDUCT IN ORDINARY MATTERS. Ill 



pose that the whole bias of men's minds 
would be the other way; that the bare 
possibility of salvation would be suffi- 
cient to arouse them to the highest de- 
gree of effort; and that, instead of being 
retarded or repelled by difficulties, every 
new hinderance would be but a fresh 
incentive to exertion. Where life is 
concerned, this is the case. No man 
gives over caring for his health because 
his symptoms are unfavourable, or the 
remedial agents he wishes to employ 
difficult of access. "All that a man 
hath will he give for his life." The 
universal principle with invalids is, 
while there is life there is hope, and 
while there is hope, no means of cure 
must be neglected. How extraordinary, 
then, is it, that men should be so easily 
turned aside, where, instead of life, it is 
the soul which is at stake! But with- 



118 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



out stopping to speculate on the causea 
of a phenomenon which is, unhappily, 
so familiar that it has ceased to excite 
wonder, it is more to our present pur- 
pose to observe, that there is actually less 
reason for discouragement in this, the most 
urgent and momentous of all pursuits, 
than there is in our common secular avo- 
cations. Whatever grounds we may 
have for anticipating success in any 
financial or professional undertaking, we 
have more for expecting it in proper 
exertions to escape from the thraldom 
of sin. I say " proper exertions," be- 
cause, in many cases, the effort is really 
not made in good faith; it is a mere 
languid, temporary striving, with which 
the heart has very little to do; and 
which must fail as a matter of course. 
But there is seldom any failure, where 
this object is pursued with the earnest- 



ERRONEOUS IDEAS. 119 



ness which men usually bring to the 
prosecution of their worldly schemes. 

There is, however, a peculiarity about 
the search after religion, which ought 
to be noticed in this connection. Most 
persons have but vague ideas of what it 
is to " become religious." The entrance 
upon a Christian life is, to their minds, 
shrouded in mystery. They know that 
except they are "born again," they can- 
not see the kingdom of God, and that 
this change must be wrought by the 
Holy Spirit. The acknowledged great- 
ness of the transformation, combined, 
perhaps, with the inspired account of 
the effusion of the Spirit on the day of 
Pentecost, has impressed them with the 
feeling, that if they are ever renewed, 
the Divine influence which is to effect 
it will come, "like a rushing, mighty 
wind," or in some other palpable m%i> 



120 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



ner, and impel them into the kingdom 
of heaven. They suppose that the 
operations of the Spirit upon the heart 
can ordinarily be distinguished from our 
own mental exercises; and that until 
we are conscious of his presence, it must 
be useless to set about the work of 
repentance. That a regenerated person 
may have a perfect assurance that the 
mighty transformation he has experi- 
enced was as much beyond the compass 
of his own powers as it would be to 
create a world, is an undoubted fact. 
But it is from the Bible we learn to 
ascribe every thing good in our exer- 
cises to the influence of the Spirit. He 
exerts his power upon us in a manner 
strictly adapted to the laws of our ra- 
tional nature. " It is God which work- 
eth in you both to will and to do of his 
good pleasure." Not only "to do/' but 



THE PROMPTINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 121 



even "to will." He touches and con- 
trols the secret springs of volition; so 
that when we "will," or determine to 
cease from sinning, to study the Scrip- 
tures, or to do any thing else which he 
has commanded, the impulse and the 
strength really come from the Spirit. 
We are conscious of the determination 
or choice, (with the motives which in- 
duce it,) and in this, of course, we are 
perfectly voluntary. But there is a 
mysterious power at work back of our 
volitions, and secretly prompting them. 
And it is on this very ground the apostle 
bids us "work out our own salvation." 
See Phil. ii. 12, 13. The Spirit is wak- 
ing us from our slumber; therefore, we 
should yield to the bias he is giving to 
our inclinations, and put forth our ear- 
nest efforts in the same direction. To 

expect that he will disclose his agency 
11 



122 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



to our minds, is to mistake the whole 
character of his functions. Our Saviour 
compares his influence to the wind, 
which is invisible, silent, and penetrat- 
ing. You are waiting, you say, for the 
Spirit to come and change your heart. 
Has not the Spirit visited you already ? 
Are you not thoughtful about your 
soul's concerns? Do you not read the 
Bible with greater satisfaction? Does 
not the truth fall upon your ear in the 
sanctuary with a different sound? Is 
not your love of the world checked? 
Are you not more disposed to seek the 
society of Christian people? Does not 
the subject of religion follow you to 
your place of business, and often come 
up unbidden to your mind? And yet 
you are "waiting for the Spirit!" What 
does all this mean, if it is not the Spirit 
moving upon your heart? While you 



THE spirit's operations. 123 



are looking here and there for the Spirit, 
he is already within you. While, like 
Naaman and the prophet, you are ex- 
pecting him to come and do some great 
thing for you, you hear not the still, 
small voice with which he is admonish- 
ing you to look to Christ and live. In 
occasional examples, he still approaches 
individuals, as he did Saul of Tarsus, 
and urges them into his kingdom with 
an impetuosity which leaves them no 
room to doubt, either as to the reality 
of the change in their condition, or the 
agency which has produced it. But 
these are exceptions to the established 
law of his administration. In ordinary 
cases, his first demonstration upon the 
heart is of a more tranquil character; 
and the entire process is apt to differ 
essentially from any thing which the 
individuals concerned may have antici- 



124 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



pated. Enough to know that you are 
not to wait in passive idleness for the 
Spirit's aid. If you are willing to give 
up your sins, it is he who has made 
you willing. If you desire to come to 
Christ, that desire is from his silent in- 
fluence upon your heart. Submit to his 
strivings; implore his further aid; and 
you will find the promise true, " To him 
that hath shall be given." 

Here, in fact, is one of the great eiv- 
couragements you have to enter at once 
upon a religious life. The seriousness 
of which you may even now be con- 
scious, shows that God is mindful of 
you, and waits to bless you. For this 
state of feeling is not the fruit of chance. 
It is one of those good gifts which come 
down from above; a token of kindness; 
a harbinger of mercy. You may say of 
ii as Manoah's wife said to him, when 



ENCOURAGEMENTS. 125 



he was expecting the Divine displeasure 
to break forth against them: "If the 
Lord were pleased to kill us, he would 
not have received a burnt-offering and 
a meat-offering at our hands, neither 
would he have showed us all these 
things, nor would, as at this time, have 
told us such things as these." If the 
Lord had not thoughts of peace toward 
you, would he have disturbed your 
spiritual slumber, and enkindled in your 
breast this solicitude about your soul? 
Or, if this language be too strong, would 
he have inclined you to reflect on your 
prospects for eternity, and to listen to 
the utterances of his word with an un- 
wonted though tfulness? Here is the 
very Being knocking at your door, on 
whom your salvation depends. Can 
you need any further assurance of his 

readiness to save you? 
11* 



126 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Or, take a broader view of this ques- 
tion. You ask, What encouragement 
have I to seek an interest in Christ? 
The obvious and conclusive answer is to 
point you to the Bible. What is the 
Bible but a revelation of the Divine 
mercy to our world? "God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life." "This is a faithful say- 
ing, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners." "Him that cometh unto 
me, I will in no wise cast out." What 
would you have more? What could 
you have ? Here is a sacrifice of infinite 
cost, which God, of his own sovereign 
will, provided for the redemption of our 
race. Here is the distinct announce- 
ment that the grand object for which 



GRACE ABOUNDING. 127 



his beloved Son became incarnate, was 
to save sinners. And here is the gra- 
cious promise of the Saviour, that he 
will receive every sinner who comes to 
him. Are you prepared to say that God 
should have done more than this? It 
cannot be. The more you reflect upon 
it, the greater must be your astonish- 
ment that he should have done so much. 
Nor can you fail to see here the truth 
of the observation already made, that 
you have far more reason to hope for 
success in a diligent and prayerful 
search for salvation, than you have in 
prosecuting any mere secular plan what- 
ever. But although you could not de- 
mand more at God's hand, he has actually 
given you more. 

I refer now especially to the character 
of the Saviour. I mean by this, not his 
abstract ability to accomplish the work 



128 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



he has undertaken; that is implied in 
his being the co-equal of the Father, 
"God over all blessed forever." But I 
allude to his personal characteristics as 
exemplified in his teachings and actions. 
Take up the gospels, and study his life. 
Listen to his discourses. Place yourself 
by him while he performs his miracles. 
Go with him into the abodes of poverty 
and suffering. See with what compas- 
sion he deals with the sick and the 
sorrowful, the tempted and the erring. 
Behold what power a cry of distress has 
to arrest him on his journeys; how he 
accommodates himself to the weaknesses 
and the prejudices of different suppli- 
ants; how gently he reproves and in- 
structs his ignorant and impetuous dis- 
ciples; how tenderly he sympathizes 
with every stricken one who repairs to 
him for succour. All this is so much 



OUR IMMANUEL 129 



superadded to his boundless capacity to 
save sinners. It is omnipotence blended 
with meekness, and benevolence, and 
pity, and long-suffering, and tenderness 
beyond the yearnings of a mothers 
heart. It not only meets and counter- 
vails the sentiment of dread, which 
makes a sinful creature shrink from 
approaching the Creator, but it clothes 
the incarnate Deity with all those hu- 
man attributes which usually win our 
affections and inspire our confidence. 
It diminishes unspeakably the difficulty 
of this work, that the Saviour is one 
who bears our nature, and has been 
tempted in all points as we are, and can, 
therefore, be touched with a feeling of 
our infirmities. You cannot but feel 
that there is every thing in his charac- 
ter to encourage your hopes; and the 
more so when you reflect, that during 



130 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



his earthly ministry, he never sent a 
sincere and humble suppliant away 
without a blessing. 

But we may go a step further still in 
this direction. If the Saviour's charac- 
ter holds out encouragement to you, so 
also does the mission of the Spieit. We 
have just been speaking of his agency in 
another aspect. Consider it now as an 
incentive to resolute and persevering 
effort. So rigorous is the bondage sin 
has imposed upon us, that the crucifixion 
itself would have been ineffectual to our 
salvation, but for the ministration of 
the Spirit. His presence, however, ob- 
viates every difficulty. "We are by 
nature blind to spiritual things, igno- 
rant of ourselves, averse to holiness, in- 
flated with ideas of our own goodness, 
devoted to the world, ashamed of Christ. 
If aroused to some degree of solicitude 



MISSION OF THE SPIRIT. 131 



about our souls, we become painfully 
conscious of the strength of our de- 
praved passions; the way of salvation 
appears obscure; we have no distinct 
apprehension of what we ought to do, 
and too often lack the moral courage to 
obey the dictates of our consciences. 
What with the turmoil of feeling with- 
in, and the subtle temptations which 
are sure to assail us from without, we 
are apt to conclude that the task to 
which we are summoned is too great for 
us, and must be given up or postponed 
to a more auspicious season. This in- 
sidious suggestion has its proper anti- 
dote in the doctrine of the Spirit's influ- 
ence. The task laid upon you is beyond 
your strength. But what then? Does 
it exceed the resources of the omnipo- 
tent Spirit? Can not He who said, 
"Let there be light," dispel the darkness 



132 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



of your understanding? Can not He 
who reduced the primeval chaos to sym 
metry and beauty, restore harmony and 
peace to your agitated breast? This is 
his prerogative, and this his errand in 
our world. "When he, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, he shall guide you into 
all truth." It is his beneficent office to 
enlighten the mind; to banish its igno- 
rance and prejudice; to show the sinner 
the worthlessness of his own righteous- 
ness as a foundation for his hopes; to 
make him sensible of his spiritual 
penury; to reveal to him the excellency 
and glory of the Redeemer, and to lead 
him a willing bondman to the Saviour's 
feet, with the feeling — 

" Nothing in my hand I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling ; 
Naked come to thee for dress, 
Helpless look to thee for grace; 



NO INVINCIBLE HINDERANCES. 133 



Vile, I to the fountain fly, 
Wash me, Saviour, or I die." 

This is what you need. It is all you 
ueed. And that Divine Spirit, who can 
accomplish this for you — who can teach 
you, strengthen you, renew you, guide 
you to Christ and fit you for heaven — is 
a God at hand, as well as a God afar off. 
His ministry is the great promise of the 
new dispensation. There is no blessing 
we have so much encouragement to pray 
for. We are even told that God is more 
willing to give the Spirit to those who 
ask him, than parents are to give good 
gifts to their children. 

The whole ground of your hinder- 
ances and misgivings, therefore, is cov- 
ered. Here is an almighty Spirit to 
conduct you, and an almighty Saviour 
to receive you. You have no difficulties 

from which they cannot extricate you; 
12 



134 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



no ♦ obstacles which they cannot enable 
you to surmount; no want which they 
cannot supply. If such proffers of aid 
were tendered you in any secular pur- 
suit, how eagerly you would grasp at 
them! Are they of less value where 
your salvation is at stake? 

But you may be unreasonable enough 
to hesitate still, because these are " ab- 
stract" promises; you would like to see 
them "tested," and then you could feel 
more confidence in venturing upon them. 
Well, this scruple is provided for. You 
have but to look around, and you can be 
gratified. There are witnesses on every 
side to testify, that they have proved 
these promises and found them true to 
the letter. They stood once where you 
stand, (for I am supposing that you 
have begun to "consider your ways.") 
They had the same doubts and fears, 



LIVING WITNESSES. 135 



the same obscure views and fluctuating 
purposes. The world tempted them as 
it is tempting you. They formed reso- 
lutions and broke them. They were 
almost persuaded to be Christians, and 
then the shame of the cross overcame 
their fortitude. They determined to 
enter upon a new course of life, and the 
fear that they " might not persevere'' 
made them draw back. But the Spirit 
continued to strive with them, until, at 
length, yielding to his benign solicita- 
tions, and relying upon his assistance, 
they gave themselves up to the Saviour 
with penitent and grateful hearts, and 
now they are "rejoicing in hope of the 
glory of God." Their faith rebukes 
your unbelief. The way of salvation is 
laid open to you as it was to them. 
You have the same warrant to accept 
of Christ's gracious invitation. You 



186 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



have the additional motives supplied by 
their experience. You have the sym- 
pathies and prayers of all Christian peo- 
ple. Your judgment is convinced. Your 
conscience is on the side of religion. 
The Spirit and the Bride bid you 
"Come." Why do you linger? 

How extraordinary is it, that argu- 
ments and appeals like these should be 
necessary. Who is the party to be 
benefited? % Whose salvation waits on 
these trembling balances? What mea- 
suring-line has sounded the depths of 
that abyss, what pen has depicted the 
glories of that paradise, between which 
your wavering spirit vibrates? 

And yet you demand encouragements 
and inducements to begin a religious life, 
as though you were the party to confer 
the favour, and God to be the recipient 
of it! How amazing his forbearance, 



LONG-SL FFERING. 137 



that even this ungrateful and (if the 
word must be used) arrogant state of 
mind, should not repel his clemency. 
He actually stoops to your caprices and 
gratifies your unreasonable exactions. 
He holds out " encouragements" to you 
far beyond any thing you could ask or 
expect. There is not an impediment in 
your way, not a difficulty you have to 
meet, for which he has not provided. 
And to crown the whole costly and 
elaborate system of relief which his mu- 
nificence has prepared, his Spirit con- 
tinues to strive with you. You may 
have tried to banish the subject of reli- 
gion from your thoughts, and found 
yourself unequal to the task. Irksome 
as it may be, it cleaves to you with a 
tenacity you cannot overcome. Neither 
reading nor company, neither business 

nor pleasure, brings you relief. Thoughts 
12* 



183 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



of eternity rush upon you in the midst 
of your daily activities. They disturb 
you in the night-watches. The spirits 
ual apathy of those around you cannot 
tranquillize your conscience. The sense 
of guilt haunts you, and the terrors of a 
coming judgment may oppress you, even 
while you are forcing yourself to appear 
cheerful. What is all this but the striv- 
ing of the Spirit? the long-suffering of 
God, who is not willing you should 
perish, but rather that you should come 
to repentance? 

Consider now what he has done for 
your salvation. Eeview the way in 
which he has led you. Ponder well the 
position you occupy. And see whether 
you can expect ever to be placed again 
in circumstances so favourable to your 
conversion. You cannot suppose either 
that God is indifferent to the manner in 



THE FATAL LIMIT. 139 



which you requite his gracious dispensa- 
tions, or that his mercy is inexhaustible. 
While he offers us a free salvation, he 
cannot but view with abhorrence the 
deliberate and persevering rejection of 
his offer. The goodness displayed in 
redemption is infinite. And for such 
creatures as we are, to decline its bene- 
fits when he himself presses them upon 
our acceptance, betrays an ingratitude 
and a hardihood which cannot go un- 
punished. There is a limit, beyond 
which the Spirit will cease to strive. 
There is a point where mercy turns to 
vengeance. Your present thoughtfulness 
may warrant the hope, that you have 
not yet passed this fatal barrier. But 
you may be rapidly approaching it. 
Every thing may hang upon the issue of 
this conflict. While you are hesitating 
whether to cast yourself at the Saviour's 



140 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



feet, or to cleave a little longer to a 
world which is deceiving and ensnaring 
you, the hours may be hasting away, 
which are to fix your everlasting destiny. 
It should be enough to end this strife, 
that your salvation depends upon God, 
and that this appears to be His time. 
If Levi had not instantly left all when 
Christ called him, it is not probable he 
would ever have been made a disciple 
If the three thousand on the day of 
Pentecost had not obeyed Peter's m? 
structions, they might never have been 
converted. To trifle with serious im- 
pressions, is to insult God. To refuse 
to hear his voice when he is speaking 
directly to our heart, is to run the hazard 
of incurring that awful doom depicted 
in the book of Proverbs, (chapter 1st :) 
" Because I have called, and ye refused ; 
I have stretched out my hand, and no 



AWFUL TIIREATENINGS. 141 



man regarded; but ye have set at nought 
all my counsel, and would none of my 
reproof, I also will laugh at your ca- 
lamity; I will mock when your fear 
'cometh; when your fear cometh as deso- 
lation, and your destruction cometh as a 
whirlwind; when distress and anguish 
cometh upon you. Then shall they call 
upon me, but I will not answer; they 
shall seek me early, but they shall not 
find me; for that they hated knowledge, 
and did not choose the fear of the Lord; 
they would none of my counsel; they 
despised all my reproof. Therefore shall 
they eat of the fruit of their own way, 
and be filled with their own devices." 

I have assumed, in the former part of 
this section, that the reader has been 
startled from his impenitency, and led 
to sober reflection. But, as has just 
been intimated, it would be too much to 



142 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



suppose, that this will be the case with 
all into whose hands this book may fall. 
Some among them will doubtless be as 
unwilling as ever, to take up the subject 
of religion, and consider it with the seri- 
ousness which it demands. To persons 
of this description, I feel at some loss 
what to say. Professing to know some- 
thing of the ground you occupy, I have 
endeavoured with all the kindness which 
was compatible with fidelity to your 
souls, to exhibit the criminality of this 
inconsideration, to expose the sophistries 
by which it is usually palliated, to set 
forth your duty, and to show what 
ample encouragement God has given 
you to set about the performance of 
it. That we should have gone over all 
these topics without mitigating your 
aversion to the subject, is a fact of very 
painful significance. It is one of those 



TOKENS OF PERDITION. 143 



facts which make men feel their impo- 
tence, in dealing with the depravity of 
the human heart. What a deep-seated 
enmity to God must possess the carnal 
mind, when it can stand out, not simply 
against the majesty and severity of the 
law, but against the boundless love and 
tenderness of the gospel! when it can 
even refuse to consider the claims of the 
Redeemer, to our confidence and venera- 
tion ! And what must this import as to 
the moral condition of these persons? 
The apostle speaks of " tokens of per- 
dition." It is a pregnant phrase. I 
will not say that it appertains to any 
reader of this volume. But you must 
judge for yourself, whether this con- 
firmed inconsideration is not likely to 
prove, in your own case, a " token of 
perdition." Does it not look as though 
the spiritual insensibility, which has 



144 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



seized upon you, were to be invincible 
and permanent? Does it not seem like 
an omen of final and remediless ruin ? 
I see not how any human agency is to 
prevent this result. Our only hope is in 
God. He can prevent it. But when 
the question is asked. Will he do this? 
every tongue must be mute. Secret 
things belong unto the Lord. We may 
not presume to pry into his counsels. 
One resource we have left — 'prayer. If 
your Christian friends have any proper 
love for your soul, they will be importu- 
nate in their intercessions for you. If 
you are not resolved upon self-destruc- 
tion, I entreat you to pray for yourself. 
Peradventure, there may yet be mercy 
for you. The Father may even now 
wait to receive you. The Saviour may 
be stretching out his hand toward you, 
and crying, "Look- unto me, and live." 



THE SPIRIT QUENCHED. 



The Holy Spirit may be secretly saying 
to you, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
give thee light." 

If you heed these gracious monitions, 
and, putting away all evasions and sub- 
terfuges, say with the prodigal, "I ivill 
arise and go to my Father," it will be 
well. Eternity will ratify the decision, 
and you will rejoice over it with a joy 
unspeakable and full of glory. But if 
you still refuse, and continue to reject 
the proffered mercy, I must again re- 
mind you that you tread on dangerous 
ground; for it is written, "My Spirit 
shall not always strive with man." 



" There is a time, we know not when, 
A point we know not where, 
That marks the destiny of men 
To glory or despair. 
18 



146 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



There is a line, by us unseen, 

That crosses every path ; 
The hidden boundary between 

God's patience and his wrath. 

To pass that limit is to die, 

To die as if by stealth ; 
It does not quench the beaming eye, 

Or pale the glow of health. 

The conscience may be still at ease, 

The spirits light and gay ; 
That which is pleasing still may please. 

And care be thrust away. 

But on that forehead God has set 

Indelibly a mark, 
Unseen by man, for man as yet 

Is blind and in the dark. 

And yet the doomed man's path below 
May bloom as Eden bloomed : 

He did not, does not, will not know, 
Or feel that he is doomed. 

He knows, he feels that all is well, 

And every fear is calmed ; 
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell, 

Not only doomed, but damned. 



THE MYSTERIOUS BOURN. 147 



where is this mysterious bourn 
By which our path is crossed ; 

Beyond which, God himself hath sworn, 
That he who goes is lost ! 

How far may we go on in sin ? 

How long will God forbear ? 
Where does hope end, and where begin 

The confines of despair ? 

An answer from the skies is sent : 
" Ye that from God depart, 

While it is called to-day, repent, 
And harden not your heart." 



148 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



CHAPTER V. 

RELIGION MUST AND WILL BE CONSIDERED. 

Up to this point, we have proceeded 
on the assumption, that it was optional 
with you, whether to consider the sub- 
ject of personal religion or not. In this 
manner the Bible treats the question. 
It addresses us throughout as intelligent 
and responsible agents, and leaves us to 
decide on our own course after listening 
to its appeals and arguments. Your 
own conscience assures you that you can 
either choose or refuse to take up the 
plan of salvation, and examine it with 



MATTEK OF PRESENT OPTION. 149 



a paramount reference to your own duty. 
God does not compel you to examine it. 
He commands, expostulates, invites, and 
points out the consequences involved in 
your disobedience. But he uses no co- 
ercion. You can still refuse. You often 
have refused. Instead of bringing your 
mind into contact with religion, when 
its claims were urged upon you, you 
have purposely directed it to something 
else. You have chosen rather to think 
of business or pleasure, or of any one of 
an endless variety of objects. It has 
not been at all to your taste to think 
about repentance and being born again, 
and renouncing the world and taking up 
the cross to follow Christ. And so you 
have shut these topics out of your breast 
and turned to more engaging themes. 
And thus far you have seen no very 
serious evil resulting from this habit; 

13* 



150 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



for a habit it has become. Your ^con- 
sideration, you are apt to imagine, has 
not materially injured either your cha- 
racter or your prospects, and you are 
slow to believe there is so much danger 
attending it as has been represented. 
You are still disinclined, therefore, (for 
this is the case we are now to deal with,) 
to combat the repugnance you feel to 
spiritual religion, and to commence a 
new life. 

Now, if this could last, there would 
be less room to remonstrate. You 
might be allowed to neglect religion just 
as long as your antipathy to it con- 
tinued. I do not say that this would be 
wise, much less that it would involve 
no criminality. I speak only of safety. 
But it is of the highest moment for you 
to know that it cannot last. However 
your inconsideration may be a matter of 



NO OPTION. 151 



option now, it will not be so always. 
There is a period coming, and it may be 
just at hand, when all discretionary con- 
trol of this subject will be at an end, and 
you will be compelled to consider it. It 
belongs to the genius of the probation- 
ary dispensation under which we live, 
that no one should be forced into earn- 
est and prolonged reflection upon the 
themes of the Bible. But " in the latter 
days ye shall consider it perfectly." On 
a death-bed it may be; certainly, after 
death, these august and solemn topics 
will engross your thoughts. They will 
gather around you then, not because 
they are more grateful than you find 
them now, nor because they are pressed 
upon you by more faithful and eloquent 
preachers. No preacher's voice will 
then be needed to awaken you to deep 
and anxious meditation. Nor will 



152 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



transitory impressions any more be obli- 
terated, as so often happens with you 
here, by the returning waves of frivolity 
and worldliness. Alien as conviction of 
sin is from all your present tendencies 
and associations, it will then be your 
established condition. From never tole- 
rating, much less fostering it, you will 
never be free from it. It will be your 
one dismal and terrible occupation, the 
very sum of your being, to dwell with 
sorrow and remorse upon those subjects 
which all the arguments of reason and 
Scripture, fortified by the warnings of 
Providence and the reproaches of con- 
science, cannot prevail upon you to ad- 
mit into your bosom now. 

It is due to you to place this fact dis- 
tinctly before you. - You should under- 
stand, that when the Scriptures exhort 
you to give attention to these subjects, 



TIME AND PLACE. 153 



and when the ministers of Christ enforce 
the exhortation with whatever skill or 
tenderness they can command, it is sim- 
ply a question of time and place. It is as 
certain that you will be brought to con- 
sider them, as that you exist; and that, 
whatever your creed or character may 
be now. The whole solicitude of your 
Christian friends in urging the matter 
upon you is, that you may begin this 
work of consideration at once. They 
hnow you will do it sooner or later. 
And they know, with equal certainty, 
that every thing depends upon your 
doing it now. 

If you ask what are the grounds of 
this representation, the answer is at 
hand. One of the chief reasons why 
you cannot be prevailed upon to apply 
your mind to the subject of religion is, 
that you are engrossed and captivated 



154 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



with worldly objects. At the period re- 
ferred to, this temptation will be effectu- 
ally removed. For "the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat, 
the earth also, and the works that are 
therein shall be burned up." This 
change virtually takes place with every 
individual at his death ; for his relations 
with this world are then terminated, as 
really as though the globe should at that 
moment be destroyed. How fearful the 
transition must be to an unconverted 
sinner, no human pen may attempt to 
describe. But consider what is involved 
in being violently torn away from all 
the scenes and pursuits with which you 
are now occupied. When the claims of 
Christianity are pressed upon you, you 
turn to your business and your amuse- 
ments, to your household cares, to your 



THE WORLD WITHDRAWN. 155 



books, to your newspapers, to public 
events, to politics, and upon these inte- 
rests you lavish the attention which is 
properly due to religion. Imagine your- 
self to be transported to some spot on 
the globe where none of these things 
would be within your reach — no busi- 
ness, no recreation, no reading, no cogni- 
zance of passing events, no opportunity 
for the exercise of ambition, of avarice, 
of enterprise, no means of personal cul- 
ture, no congenial society; but, on the 
contrary, an unavoidable and intimate 
fellowship with companions scarcely re- 
moved from demons in character and 
behaviour, Can you picture to yourself 
any thing more horrible than this ? And 
yet it would approximate only in the 
faintest degree to the actual condition 
upon which every unrenewed person 
enters at death. For the instant the 



156 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



soul quits the body, its severance from 
all things terrestrial is complete and final. 
There is not even left the spectacle of 
the earth itself to look upon; its sands 
and its seas, its herbage and its flowers, 
its forests and its mountains, all will 
have disappeared forever. How impos- 
sible will it be then for any man to drive 
away religion from his thoughts by in- 
viting the world to come in and pre- 
occupy them ! The world, in so far as 
he is concerned, will have ceased to be. 
And, unless he has some other resource, 
for aught that the world can do for him, 
the unwelcome themes of religion will 
have undisputed possession of his breast. 
This, however, is but a small part of 
the truth. Not only will he be cut off 
from all access to this world, but there 
will be every thing in his situation to 
force these repulsive topics upon his 



ALONE WITH GOD. 157 



attention. Even here a rich man feels 
lost, if he is stripped of his wealth; and 
a scholar when deprived of his books; 
and a merchant when obliged to leave 
his business for a season; and a mother 
when separated from her children; and 
a child when removed from its parents, 
its school, or its play. But there, super- 
added to these privations, then become 
absolute and immitigable, there will be 
objects and associations too closely linked 
with eternal realities for the soul to 
elude or resist their influence. The 
rich man in the parable was taken up 
with his luxury, and feasting, and self- 
indulgence, until death snatched him 
away. Every one is ready to ask, what 
ensued after death. In this single in- 
stance, our Saviour has lifted the curtain 
and given us a glimpse of a lost soul 
after its discharge from the body. For 

14 



158 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



although, it is a parable, we cannot sup- 
pose that he would so construct it as to 
produce an impression upon our minds 
contrary to the truth. We follow this 
unconverted sinner, then, as the immor- 
tal spirit hastens away, and we find him 
presently "in hell, being in torments," 
and pleading with Abraham to send 
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his 
finger in water, and cool his tongue — for 
he was tormented in the flame. (Luke, 
chapter 16th.) We have no reason to 
doubt, that a similar doom, of which 
this may be but a faint and imperfect 
symbol, is experienced by every sinner 
dying in impenitency. And if this be 
so, you may judge whether it will be 
possible for one in these circumstances 
to avoid " considering" the serious topics 
which were so constantly repelled during 
this life. Will he be able to shut out 



IN ETERNITY. 159 



the thought of eternity from his mind, 
now that he finds himself in eternity? 
Can he refuse to think of his soul, when 
his soul is disengaged from its clay 
tabernacle, and still preserves a con- 
scious existence? Can he say in his 
heart " There is no God," when the ven- 
geance of God is eating up his spirits? 
Can he treat hell as a chimera, when his 
ears have no respite from its weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth? Can 
he flatter himself, that Christ is too 
compassionate to allow a sinner like 
him to perish, when the "wrath of tlie 
Lamb" is descending all around him, as 
" hailstones and coals of fire ?" Oh, no, 
no ! There will be no alternative left to 
you then. You will be compelled to 
think of religion. You will be no more 
able to thrust its solemn verities from you, 
than to compass your own annihilation. 



160 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



So far from being allowed only an oc- 
casional and transient hearing, as they 
are here, they will cleave to you with 
an invincible tenacity, and fill up all 
your waking and your sleeping mo- 
ments. Your sleeping moments, did I 
say? Alas, there will be no sleep for the 
lost soul. That is a night which brings 
no repose; a sorrow which knows no re- 
spite. Could the unhappy sinner cease 
from thinking, could he have even his 
intervals of mental torpor and forgetful- 
ness, half the bitterness of his cup were 
gone. But this eannot be. He must 
think on, and think on, and think on; 
and forever think of the subjects which 
are most painful to him. 

These subjects, I have said, are the 
great themes of religion, which are so 
often pressed upon your attention, and 
to so little purpose now. Of course you 



NEW ASPECTS. 161 



are not to infer from this that they will 
come up before the mind of a lost sinner 
in the same aspect as they do here. The 
invisible barrier which separates time 
from eternity, makes an infinite differ- 
ence in the relations which we sustain 
to the Christian revelation and its Di- 
vine Author. So long as we are in this 
world, the Bible addresses us in accents 
of mercy. The very word gospel, like 
the Greek term of which it is the trans- 
lation, means glad tidings. It is God's 
proclamation of pardon. It is a display 
of his benevolence and pity, which has 
filled all heaven with adoring wonder. 
It is a free tender of forgiveness and sal- 
vation to the very chief of sinners. And 
this proffer he continues to urge upon 
us, down to the very moment of death, 
by motives drawn from his own per- 
fections, from the love of Christ, from 

14* 



162 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



the necessities ot our own souls, from 
the ruined condition of the world, and 
from many other sources. But here he 
stops. The change which death pro- 
duces in the outward condition of the 
impenitent sinner, is not greater than 
the revolution it effects in his relations 
to the system of redemption. To him, 
it ceases to be a system of redemption. 
There is no offer of pardon; no call to 
repentance; no striving of the Spirit. 
The Bible and the Sabbath, the ministry 
of reconciliation, and even the throne 
of grace, disappear. Instead of mercy 
there is judgment. For pity, there is 
vengeance. For " Come unto me," there 
is " Depart ye!" For the fountain 
opened for sin and uncleanness, there is 
the lake which burneth with fire and 
brimstone. All the objects which crowd 
upon the disembodied spirit breathe of 



BEFORE THE BAR. 163 



retribution, and anguish, and despair. 
And every thing around and within 
conspires to fasten the thoughts, as by 
an inexorable necessity, upon that cross 
which has now ceased to be a symbol of 
mercy; and those abused privileges and 
warnings which come back with their 
scorpion stings to agonize the soul. 

If it be disagreeable to you to think 
of religion here; if you have a conscious 
antipathy toward it when it is robed in 
light and loveliness, and seeks you out, 
only to extricate you from the toils of 
sin, and conduct you in triumph up to 
the realms of bliss, how will you bear 
the contemplation of it when it stands 
before you, arrayed in the terrors of 
vindicatory justice? If you cannot en- 
dure its offers of pardon and of heaven, 
how will you endure it when it forces 
itself upon you, as an ever-present, har- 



164 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



rowing memorial, that those offers are 
withdrawn forever? If it is irksome 
to you to hear of Christ as a Saviour, 
what would you not give to have the 
rocks and the mountains to fall on you 
and cover you, when the archangel's 
trump summons you to appear before 
him, as a Judge ! 

It would, perhaps, be some slight alle- 
viation of the anguish of that day, were 
the whole race to encounter a common 
doom. So it will certainly aggravate 
the misery of the lost, to reflect, that to 
a portion of the race, this is a day of joy 
and triumph. 

« * * * * Qq the right hand of bliss, 
Sublime in glory, talking with their peers 
Of the incarnate Saviour's love/' 

they will see a multitude which no man 
can number, who once dwelt with them 
in this vale of tears. Among them may 



THE LAST MEETING. 165 



be some whom they had known as 
neighbours, friends, fellow-worshippers, 
who sat side by side with them in the 
sanctuary, listened to the same sermons, 
sang the same hymns of praise, and 
united, outwardly at least, in the same 
prayers. Nay, there may be those who 
were bound to them by much more en- 
dearing ties, — a wife, a parent, a child, 
a sister, a household group, who used to 
sit around the same table, and with 
whose lives, theirs were interlaced like 
the reticulations of the vine, which 
spread its drapery over their family 
mansion. These are saved, and iliey are 
lost! They journeyed through life to- 
gether, and at its close, they parted, 
never to meet, except as they meet now, 
one on the right hand of Christ, the 
other on his left; one never to weep, 
the other never to smile again. How 



166 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



inevitable and how poignant the convic- 
tion, that but for their own obduracy in 
refusing to come to Christ, they too 
might have been among that radiant 
company ! 

It will, indeed, be an overwhelming 
reflection, that they were fully instructed 
in their duty, and admonished of the 
consequences of neglecting it. Life and 
death were set before them. They 
knew, that unless they were born of the 
Spirit, they could not enter into the 
kingdom of God; that except they re- 
pented, they must perish; that if they 
refused to believe in Christ, they must 
be damned.* All this was distinctly 
presented to them. With many of them, 
it was instilled into their infant minds, 
and reiterated by pious parents, and 

* John iii. 5. Luke xiii. 3. Mark xvi. 16. 



REPENTANCE OR PERDITION. 167 



proclaimed in their hearing by the min- 
isters of the gospel ; through the whole 
course of their lives. And if the con- 
sciousness that he once had " Moses and 
the prophets" augmented the suffering 
of the rich man in hell, what pangs of 
sorrow must they experience who had 
not only Moses and the prophets, but 
Christ and the apostles ? 

"Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not! 
These are the words to which the harps of grief 
Are strung; and to the chorus of the damned, 
The rocks of hell repeat them, evermore; 
Loud echoed through the caverns of despair, 
And poured in thunder on the ear of Wo." 

There can be little hazard in saying 
to the reader of this treatise, that he 
knows his duty. It is not a thing of 
yesterday with you, that you have had 
access to the Bible, or that you have 
heard the preaching of the gospel. It 
has probably been your high privilege 



168 THE GKJEAT QUESTION. 



to grow up in the midst of religious 
influences, eminently adapted to direct 
your thoughts and efforts heavenward. 
So far from not being instructed in the 
essential doctrines and duties of Chris- 
tianity, these may have been so vividly 
impressed upon your mind, that it has 
more than once cost you a struggle to 
stifle your convictions, and persist in 
your devotion to the world. Should 
you finally perish, (which may a merci- 
ful God prevent!) this fact cannot fail 
to impart new energy to every other 
element of your misery. It were in that 
case an unspeakable mitigation, could 
you be allowed to take your place at 
Christ's bar, with the people of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, with the besotted Hin- 
doos, or with the ferocious cannibals of 
the South Seas. These must suffer; for 
they abused the light of nature. But 



REMEMBER. 169 



nature is to the written revelation like 
a twinkling star to the sun; and all 
who pervert or neglect the Scriptures, 
must look for a corresponding retribu- 
tion. There will be no wretchedness 
there, comparable to that of those who 
persevered through life, in counting the 
blood of the covenant an unholy thing, 
and doing despite to the Spirit of grace. 
In the parable already mentioned, 
Abraham begins his reply to the lost 
sinner with a word of most pregnant 
signification. "Son, remember 7" What 
unfathomable depths of sorrow are em- 
bosomed in this word ! In this life you 
find it convenient, and therefore easy, to 
forget much that pertains to your spirit- 
ual well-being. You forget the pious 
lessons of the nursery. You forget the 
beneficent invitations of the Saviour. 
You forget the urgent expostulations of 

15 



170 THE GREAT QUESTION." 



the sanctuary. You forget the serious 
meditations of the house of mourning. 
You forget the self-reproaches, and anx- 
ious prayers, and sacred promises of the 
bed of sickness. You forget the pur- 
poses of amendment so often formed, 
and the strivings of the Spirit so often 
resisted. But memory will be more 
faithful to its trust in that world. There 
are numerous facts which favour the be- 
lief, that nothing once confided to this 
mysterious faculty is ever lost. In- 
stances have occurred of persons who 
have been able to recite long passages of 
the ancient classics, many years after 
they had lost all knowledge of the lan- 
guage, and of others who could commit 
to memory poems of great length in a 
language they never learned. There is 
a well-known case of a female servant, 
who, in a fit of delirium during sickness, 



FEABFUL TESTIMONY. 171 



was heard uttering Hebrew words and 
sentences : a marvel which was explained 
when an inquiry into her history brought 
out the fact, that she had once lived in 
the family of a learned German divine, 
whom she had heard reading and talk- 
ing in Hebrew, as she was at work in 
his library. And several persons res- 
cued from drowning have testified, that 
while struggling under the water, their 
past lives have come up before them 
with a vividness and minuteness of de- 
tail, which they could only describe by 
saying, " It seemed as though I thought 
of every thing I had ever said and done, 
or that had ever happened to me." 
These are fearful intimations as to the 
constitution of our being. They give 
plausibility to the conjecture, that the 
memory is like a book written over with 
sympathetic ink, which appears a blank 



172 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



until exposed to the fire, and then every 
page is seen covered with penmanship. 
Whatever vacuity may possess the mind 
of the unrenewed sinner when sum- 
moned before the bar of judgment, it is 
only necessary for the Judge to touch 
the secret spring of his memory, and his 
buried thoughts will start into being, 
"like the insects that come from an ant- 
hill when it is stirred." And can we 
doubt that God will do this ? Is it not 
implied in the statement, that he " shall 
bring every work into judgment, with 
every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil?" And are we not 
warranted in believing, that this tran- 
script of the sinner's life, so comprehen- 
sive and so graphic as to reveal even his 
most secret thoughts, will not merely 
be spread before him at the last day, but 
kept before him by a too faithful memory 



AN APPALLING RETROSPECT. 173 



throughout eternity ? For myself, I can- 
not and do not doubt it. 

And if it shall prove to be so, with 
how much reason may we contend, that 
those who refused to consider the subject 
of religion here, will be compelled to 
fasten their thoughts upon these unwel- 
come topics hereafter; and, most of all, 
upon the gracious dealings of God with 
them, and their base requital of his 
kindness. The life you have lived here, 
must be lived over and over again there. 
This religious education, these parental 
counsels and prayers, these providential 
warnings, these tranquil Sabbaths, these 
convictions of sin, these anxious fore- 
bodings about eternity, these resolutions 
of repentance, these secret cries fqg 
mercy, this shame of the cross, this fear 
of the world, these relapses into sin — 
all, all will recur hereafter, and continue 

15* 



174 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



to pass and repass before the mind, so 
long as the mind itself endures. You 
will think of God; but it will be as the 
Psalmist thought of him, " I remembered 
God, and was troubled." You will think 
of the Bible; but it will be as of a book 
which is now sealed against you. You 
will think of the Saviour; but it will be 
only to look on him whom you pierced, 
and whose blood now imprecates ven- 
geance upon you. You will think of 
heaven; but it will be with the sad con- 
viction that it was once within your 
reach, and is now separated from you by 
an impassable gulf. *You will think of 
your Sabbaths; but it will be to reflect 
that they are gone forever. You will 
l^ink of your seasons of religious anxiety; 
but it will be to remember, that when 
you were " almost persuaded to be a 
Christian," you dismissed the subject 



REMORSE. 175 



from your breast, and threw yourself 
again into the arms of an ungodly world. 
"Wretch that I am!" you may well 
exclaim, "what shall I do, or whither 
shall I flee? I am weighed in the ba- 
lance, and am found wanting. Oh, that I 
had never been instructed in the will of 
God at all, rather than that, being thus 
instructed, I should have disregarded 
and transgressed it. Would to God I 
had been allied to the meanest of the 
human race, to them that come nearest 
to the state of brutes, rather than that 
I should have had my lot in cultivated 
life, amid so many of the improvements 
of reason, and amid so many of the ad- 
vantages of religion too! and thus to 
have perverted all to my destruction. 
Who can dwell in the devouring flames ? 
Who can lie down in the everlasting 
burnings? But whom have I to blame 



176 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



in. all this but myself? What have I to 
accuse but my own stupid and incorri- 
gible folly? On what is all this terrible 
ruin to be charged, but on this one fatal 
cause, that, having broken God's law, I 
rejected his gospel too? And now my 
doom is sealed, and sealed forever."* 

Would that I could spare you such a 
recital as this. It is not of choice, but 
of necessity that I present it. I shrink 
from this topic, the misery of a lost soul, 
with a repugnance which is wellnigh 
invincible. There is no theme so repul- 
sive, so appalling to me; none that I so 
much dread to speak of. We are all 
liable to contract a subtle unbelief on 
this subject, which derives shelter and 
nourishment from our benevolent sym- 
pathies. There is something so horrible, 

* Vide Doddridge's Rise and Progress. 



MISTAKEN TENDERNESS. 177 



<so heart-rending in the thought, that one 
whom we have known and loved may 
pass out of this world into the abodes of 
the damned, and become the companion 
^of the devil and his angels for all eter- 
nity, that we believe it as though we 
believed it not. We drive it away from 
us. We treat it as a phantom which 
must not be allowed to disturb our peace. 
But is this right? Is it wise? Is it be- 
coming? Shall we aspire to be more 
merciful than the God of mercy? Are 
we to challenge to ourselves more ten- 
derness than the Saviour? And did he 
avoid this subject? Did lie refrain from 
speaking of "the worm that never dies 
and the fire that shall never be quench- 
ed?" It is the awful sanctity and the 
ineffable gentleness of his character 
which impart to his utterances on this 
topic so sublime a pathos, so unearthly 



178 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



a solemnity. No mistaken lenity kept 
him from proclaiming that there was a 
hell. Nor did he ever suppress the de- 
claration, that it is the broad road, in 
which the mass of the race are walking, 
that leads to it. These truths concern 
us as deeply as they could the genera- 
tion among whom he lived. And woe 
be to us if we deny or dissemble them. 
Yes, there is a hell. And every one 
who is neglecting the great salvation, is 
in imminent peril of it. 

And now, the momentous alternative 
submitted to the reader is, Will you 
consider the subject of religion here, or 
will you consider it in eternity? One 
or the other you must do. You can no 
more elude it than you can cease to be. 
If you decline the examination of the 
subject here, "in the latter days you 
shall consider it perfectly." Judge for 



PRESENT MERCY. 179 



yourself, whether it will not be better, 
infinitely better, to give your attention 
to it now. In this world, religion con- 
templates you as a sinner ruined and 
condemned, but reprieved. It proposes 
itself to you as a system of mercy. It 
comes with the blood of atonement and 
the ministry of the Spirit, with pardon, 
and renewal, and holiness, and peace. 
It breathes of penitence and love, of 
hope and triumph, of a reconciled God 
and a glorious heaven. It finds you in 
circumstances in which you can comply 
with its demands, not only without com- 
promising any of your interests, spiritual 
or secular, but with decided advantage 
to them all. It supplies you with every 
needful help — with a very profusion of 
the means of grace. It holds out to you 
encouragements and inducements to the 
performance of your duty, of the most 



180 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



engaging character. And it crowns all 
its appeals with a distinct and monitory 
exhibition of the fearful consequences 
which must attend your refusal. 

Now, contrast with this, the situation 
in which you will be compelled to con- 
sider the subject, if it is neglected here. 
No longer in a world of probation, but 
in a world of retribution — the light 
of the Sun of righteousness, which is 
streaming down upon your pathway 
now, exchanged for the blackness of 
darkness — all your domestic ties and 
social affinities dissolved — all the plans 
and occupations which now engross you 
annihilated — religion presented to you 
only in its terrors — the Saviour known 
only in the dreadful anathema denounced 
against those who do not love him — the 
Spirit known only with the anguish of 
the sinner who has sinned away his 



UNENDING WOE. 181 



da} of grace — with no Bible to repair to 
for counsel — no friend to fly to for sym- 
pathy — no God to whom you can cry 
for mercy — no employments which can 
mitigate your desolation — no compa- 
nions but such as will increase your 
wretchedness, — all possible forms and 
appliances of misery around you; and, 
within, the gnawings of the undying 
worm, — no respite, no peace, no hope— 
the remorse which knows no cessation — 
the despair which knows no ebb ! And 
all this, forever — forever — forever and 
ever ! Oh, my fellow-sinner, can you do 
this? Can you postpone all serious re- 
flection to such a world? Can you 
pluck down upon yourself a ruin so 
awful, so irretrievable? Say not that 
this is an exaggerated picture, adapted 
only to harrow up the feelings. What 
pencil can depict the agonies of a lost 

16 



182 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



soul ? If you cannot bear to look upon 
the canvas, how could you endure the 
reality? And why will you run the 
hazard ol it, by postponing your repent- 
ance? "He that being often reproved, 
hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be 
destroyed, and that without remedy." 
Through the mercy of God, this doom, 
which so many others have encountered, 
has not yet overtaken you. You are 
still within sight of the cross. And the 
Saviour still bids you look to him and 
live. 

" Believe, and take the promised rest; 
Obey, — and be forever blest !" 



AN INQUIRER. 183 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT CAN I DO? 

I AM willing to believe, that among 
the readers of this book, there may be, 
here and there, one upon whom the 
arguments and appeals presented in the 
preceding pages will not have been 
thrown away. You are at length satis- 
fied, that it is your duty to attend to 
the claims of personal religion. But 
the subject is so new and strange to you 
that you know not how to go about it. 
"I would like to become a Christian. 
But what can I do? Tell me just what to 
do, and I am ready to follow your di- 



184 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



rections." This is your language. If it 
is uttered in good faith, (as I, of course, 
presume it to be,) it is cause for thank- 
fulness. It is a great point gained, when 
an individual has been brought by the 
Spirit of God to that state of mind, that 
he is disposed to ask, " What must I do 
to be saved?" 

The answer to this momentous ques- 
tion has been interwoven with the whole 
texture of this volume, and, in several 
places, stated in a formal way. But 
your desire for a more particular expla- 
nation of the subject is reasonable, and 
shall be complied with, so far as God 
may enable me to meet your wishes. 

Let us first review the plan of salva- 
tion. This very phrase, as you will per 
ceive, directs the mind to our lost con- 
dition; for he only who is lost, requires 
to be saved. The ruin in which we 



HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 185 



were overwhelmed by the apostacy of 
our first parents, comprises two distinct 
but inseparable parts or elements: de- 
pravity of heart, and subjection to the 
penalty of the Divine law. The former 
is set forth in such passages as these: 
"That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh." "By nature, the children of 
wrath." "Every imagination of the 
thought of man's heart is only evil con- 
tinually." "All have sinned and come 
short of the glory of God." " The carnal 
mind is enmity against God." "The 
heart is deceitful above all things, and 
desperately wicked."* The other cha- 
racteristic of our ruined state is affirmed 
with equal explicitness. "The wages 
of sin is death." " The wrath of God is 



* John iii. 6. Eph. ii. 3. Gen. vi. 5. Rom 

iii. 23; viii. 7. Jer. xvii. 9. 
16* 



186 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



revealed from heaven against all un- 
godliness and unrighteousness of men." 
"Cursed is every one that continueth 
not in all things which are written in 
the book of the law to do them." 
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die."* 
A reference Bible will direct you to 
numerous other passages, bearing on 
each of these points. The doctrine they 
teach is, that man is by nature and by 
practice a guilty and helpless sinner. 
His depravity extends to all his powers; 
his understanding is darkened; his af- 
fections are earthly and grovelling; his 
will is rebellious; his conscience :s en- 
feebled or perverted, and the whole cur- 
rent of his being, instead of tending 
toward his Creator, is alien from God, and 
hostile to his character and government. 

* Rom. vi. 23 j i, 18. Gal. iii. 10. Ezek. xviii. 4, 



THE TWOFOLD RUIN. 187 



Of course, he is under condemnation. 
The sentence of the law has gone out 
against him, and retributive justice 
waits to visit him with its penal curse. 

It is evident, (as formerly intimated,) 
that the only salvation which can meet 
the exigencies of a race in this condition, 
must be of the twofold character of the 
misery from which they are to be extri- 
cated. To employ a familiar illustra- 
tion, the sinner is in the condition of a 
criminal, who, while under sentence of 
death, is attacked with a mortal disease. 
There are two things which a man in 
these circumstances needs, neither of 
which will avail him any thing without 
the other. He may receive a pardon, 
but he will still die of his malady. He 
may be healed of his malady, but he 
will have to suffer for his crime. He 
must be both healed and pardoned, or 



188 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



his^ life is gone. So with the sinner. 
He requires to be forgiven, and to be 
cured of the fatal leprosy of sin. For- 
giveness alone would not fit him for 
heaven. Neither would spiritual heal- 
ing. The two must be combined. And 
in the economy of redemption they are 
combined. One of them is secured in 
the renewing of the heart by the Holy 
Spirit; the other, by the soul's casting 
itself upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to be 
pardoned and accepted, solely through 
the merit of his atoning blood and per- 
fect righteousness. 

These themes are the burden of the 
New Testament. " Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom 
of God." u Of his own will begat he us 
with the word of truth." u If any man 
be in Christ, he is a new creature ; old 
things are passed away; behold, all 



PROOFS FROM SCRIPTURE. 189 



things are become new." " Except ye 
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 
" God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." " Christ is the 
end of the law for righteousness, to 
every one than believeth." " Him that 
cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast 
out." " For he hath made him to be 
sin for us who knew no sin, that we 
might be made the righteousness of God 
in him." "Even the righteousness of 
God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ 
unto all, and upon all them that believe, 
for there is no difference." "He that 
believeth on him is not condemned; but 
he that believeth not is condemned al- 
ready, because he hath not believed in 
the name of the only-begotten Son of 



190 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



God." "Holiness, without which no 
man shall see the Lord."* 

In these and other passages, it is 
sometimes regeneration, sometimes justi- 
fication, and again, faith, or repentance, 
or holiness, which is declared to be in- 
dispensable to salvation. All are alike 
necessary; and are equally included or 
implied in the work of the Spirit within 
us, and the work of the Saviour without 
us. In the statement just made, I have 
substituted the word " justification" for 
" pardon" or "forgiveness," previously 
used. The reason is, that man needs 
more than pardon; he must be "justi- 
fied." When a convict is pardoned, he 
is simply set free from the penalty of 

* John iii. 3. James i. 18. 2 Cor. v. 17. Luke 
xiii. 3. John iii. 16. Rom. x. 4. John vi. 37. 
2 Cor. v. 21. Rom. iii. 22. John iii. 18. Heb. 
xii. 14. 



THE MEDIATOR. 191 



the law. If his sovereign should also 
invite him to his palace, adopt him as a 
son, exalt him to the highest honours of 
the realm, and make over to him a title 
in perpetuity to his kingdom, it would 
supply an illustration of what God is 
pleased in his infinite mercy to do for 
every penitent and believing sinner; and 
of what, it may be added, must be done 
in order to his salvation. 

But you will ask, with anxiety, How 
is this effected? I answer, Through 
the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
As is clearly set forth in the Scripture 
testimonies that have been quoted, our 
condition by nature was quite hopeless. 
In so far as any resources of our own, or 
of other races of creatures, were con- 
cerned, we must have remained forever 
under the power of that penal death 
which is the righteous penalty of the 



192 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Divine law. But " where sin abounded, 
grace hath much more abounded." God 
was pleased, of his mere good pleasure, 
to send his only-begotten Son into th« 
world, that we might live through him. 
Uniting our nature with his own, Jesus 
stooped to become our Substitute, and 
to expiate our sins with his blood. As- 
suming our law-place, he rendered to 
the law that obedience which we had 
failed to render, and bore that penalty 
which we had incurred. It was a funda- 
mental principle of the Divine admiji- 
istration, that " without shedding of 
blood, there could be no remission. " 
The shedding of Cheist's blood not 
only sustained, but " magnified" the law; 
while it illustrated, beyond any other 
measure of which it is possible for the 
human mind to conceive, the dreadful 
evil of sin, and the boundless love, the 



EFFICACY OF CHRIST'S BLOOD. 193 



inflexible justice, and the immaculate 
holiness of the Deity. It was as our 
Surety he suffered and died. " He bore 
our sms in his own body on the tree." 
" While we were yet sinners, Christ 
died for us." "Ye are redeemed with 
the precious blood of Christ." " Christ 
hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us." 

On the efficacy of this sacrifice there 
can be no question. It was appointed 
and accepted by the Father; and the 
least consideration of the subject must 
suffice to show, that the blood of such 
a victim has a value sufficient to atone 
for the sins of unnumbered worlds, if it 
were the purpose of God so to apply it. 

Here, then, is what every sinner 
needs, — what you need, — a sacrifice 
which takes away sin, and a righteous- 
ness which fulfils all the requirements 

17 



194 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



of the Divine jurisprudence. How can 
they so become yours as to avail to your 
justification? The answer which the 
Scriptures give to this important ques- 
tion, is — by faith. "He that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life; he 
that believeth not the Son shall not see 
life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him." "God is just, and the justifier of 
him that believeth in Jesus." " This is 
his commandment, that we should be- 
lieve on his Son Jesus Christ." This act 
is in other places styled, a looking to 
Christ, receiving Christ, building on 
Christ, and, more commonly, coming to 
Christ. For all practical purposes, these 
expressions may be regarded as equiva- 
lent and interchangeable. The sinner, 
3nlightened by the Spirit and word of 
God, is made sensible of his depraved 
and miserable condition, of his exposure 



BELIEF IN CHRIST. 19f 



to the Divine displeasure, and of the 
worthlessness of his former hopes; and, 
discovering at the same time the excel- 
lency and sufficiency of Christ, he re- 
ceives and rests upon him alone for sal- 
vation. In other words, he believes the 
testimony of God concerning his own sin 
and ruin. He believes His testimony 
concerning Jesus Christ, as the propitia- 
tion for our sins, our Ransom, and our 
suffering and atoning High Priest. He 
believes the gracious assurance, that God 
will save to the uttermost all who come 
unto him by Jesus Christ; that none 
who come shall in any wise be cast out ; 
that " every one who thirsteth," yea, 
that "whosoever will," even though he 
be the chief of sinners, may come to 
Christ, and shall be made welcome. 
This he believes; — not, indeed, without 
much distrust and many a conflict; and 



196 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



not^ ordinarily, without having tried 
various fruitless expedients for obtain- 
ing peace of mind. But, in the end, he 
believes it; and thereupon, with contri- 
tion for his sins, and gratitude for the 
boundless mercy of God, he accepts the 
revealed method of salvation, and trusts 
in the merits of Christ as the foundation 
of his hope. Belying upon the right- 
eousness of Christ for acceptance, that 
righteousness is made over to him or set 
down to his account — precisely as our 
sins were laid upon the Saviour. As 
our Substitute, he consented to be "made 
sin for us," that is, to have our sins 
visited upon him, and to be regarded 
and treated as a sinner in our stead. 
And his compassionate design in this 
was, that " we might be made the 
righteousness of God in him;" to wit: 
that his righteousness (his "obedience 



CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 197 



unto death/' whereby he fully satisfied 
the claims of the law) might be so reck- 
oned to our account, that we should be 
regarded and treated as righteous; or, in 
other words, be " justified." It is this 
closing in with the gospel method of 
salvation, this cordial assent of the soul 
to Christ's invitations, this entire sur- 
render of the heart to him, not only as a 
Saviour to be trusted in, but as a King 
and Sovereign, to be obeyed and ho- 
noured, which constitutes true faith. 
And if you thus believe in Christ, you 
will be saved. 

" But what," you may be ready to ask, 
" becomes of regeneration and repentance. 
Are not these also essential to salva- 
tion ?" They are. But will you recur 
to the views presented in a former part 
of this Treatise, on the nature of the 
Spirit's work upon the heart? This 

17* 



198 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



Divine agent, we have reason to believe, 
not only presents the truth to the mind, 
but, in some mysterious manner, ope- 
rates directly upon the mind, so as to 
enable it to apprehend the truth in 
its just import. He imparts, with the 
light, the capacity of spiritual vision. 
(See 1 Cor. ii. 14.) But all this is done 
without trenching upon our free agency. 
The sinner acts with as perfect freedom 
in every stage of his conversion — and in 
the entire development and growth of 
the spiritual man— as he ever did in 
rejecting the Saviour, or in prosecuting 
a secular project. But the Almighty 
Spirit is there, gently withdrawing the 
scales from his eyes, unveiling to him 
his real condition, disclosing the majesty 
of the violated law, the awful holiness 
of the Godhead, and the efficacy of the 
great sacrifice, swaying his reluctant 



RENEWING GRACE. 199 



will, loosening his hold upon the world, 
and, by degrees, leading him on, in peni- 
tence, and doubt, and anxiety, toward 
the cross — and, at length, to the Saviour 
himself. It is while you are "striving 
to enter in at the strait gate," and 
occupied with looking to Christ, and as 
the cause of your doing this, that the 
Spirit is "working in you to will and 
to do of his good pleasure." And it is 
through the efficacy of his renewing 
grace that you do, as the first act of the 
new life he has imparted to you, open 
your heart to Jesus of Nazareth, and 
cry, " My Lord and my God!" 

The exercises which precede this re- 
ceiving of Christ are endlessly diversi- 
fied. " By the law is the knowledge of 
sin." " The law is our school-master to 
bring us to Christ." And the " law- 
work" (as the old divines expressed it) 



200 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



is longer or shorter, milder or more 
pungent, in different cases. In most of 
the examples of conversion recorded in 
the New Testament, it was of brief du- 
ration. Witness the dying thief; the 
three thousand; the jailer of Philippi; 
the Eoman converts. (Acts xxviii.) In 
some cases, there was intense anxiety 
and terror, as with the jailer and the 
publican. While in others, there seems 
to have been no convulsion of feeling 
whatever, but an humble and grateful 
reception of a crucified Saviour as soon 
as he was made known: to this class 
may be referred the instances of the 
centurion, (Luke vii.,) the Ethiopian 
eunuch, (Acts viii.,) and Lydia, (Acts 
xvi.) The same diversity has obtained 
in later times. Luther was a long while 
groping his way to the cross — no strange 
thing certainly, when we consider the 



CONVICTION. 201 



circumstances in which he was placed. 
This also was the experience of Bunyan, 
and of that great man, Dr. Owen; both 
of whom passed through protracted and 
painful conflicts. But in numerous 
other cases of undoubted conversion, 
there has been a close resemblance to 
those Scriptural examples, in which the 
soul was drawn to the Saviour with 
cords of love. 

Nothing is more common than for in- 
dividuals newly aroused to serious re- 
flection, to insist upon a specific measure 
of "conviction," as an essential pre- 
requisite to their coming to Christ. 
That some degree of conviction is de- 
manded, appears from the fact, that no 
one will seek a Saviour until he feels 
himself to be lost. "They that are 
whole need not a physician, but they 
that are sick." But the precise extent 



202 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



to which this law- work shall be carried 
in any given case depends on the sove- 
reignty of God. If Jesus sees fit to send 
a word, in passing, to the heart of Mat- 
thew, sitting at the receipt of custom, 
which shall instantaneously transmute 
him into a disciple ; and to consign Saul 
of Tarsus to three days and nights of 
blindness and contrition and remorse; 
neither may complain — Saul, that he 
experienced too much distress, nor Mat- 
thew that he experienced too little. The 
most intense mental anguish has no 
merit in it. And the ardent desire for 
it, on the part of awakened sinners, fre- 
quently springs from a subtle spirit of 
self-righteousness — from a feeling that it 
would in some way recommend them to 
the Saviour, or move his pity toward 
them. How fallacious this idea is, might 
be seen from the fact that individuals 



NO MERIT IN CONVICTION. 203 



sometimes experience the most torturing 
convictions, without being converted 
Of what avail were the convictions of 
Cain — of Judas — of Felix? Nor is it 
less important to observe, that the feel- 
ing of which I am now speaking, is de- 
rogatory to the Saviour. It aims at the 
securing to the sinner himself a share in 
the glory of his salvation. He would 
come to Christ with a price in his hand — 
deeming himself not altogether unwor- 
thy of his clemency, because of his tears 
and his self-reproaches and his mental 
anguish.* Distressed and humbled he 
may well be : if he could see his sins in 
all their enormity, his remorse and ter- 
ror would far exceed any thing he has 
yet experienced. But there is no merit 
in this. It has no efficacy to expiate 
the least of his transgressions. It can* 
not, in the slightest degree, mitigate his 



204 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



ill-desert. And so long as he trusts in 
it to make himself less unworthy to be 
accepted and saved ; it will prove an in- 
vincible barrier to his coming to Christ 
at all. If we are ever saved, it must be 
by coming to Christ as miserable, depra- 
ved, ruined, and helpless sinners, without 
righteousness and without strength, feel- 
ing that all the merit must be his, that 
his blood alone can cleanse us, and that 
it is for God, in his wise and holy sove- 
reignty, to decide, whether we shall be 
sprinkled with that precious blood, or 
left to perish. It is to those who are 
soothing themselves with a complacent 
self-righteousness, which as often as- 
sumes the type just indicated, as any 
other, he says, " Because • thou knowest 
not that thou art wretched, and misera- 
ble, and poor, and blind, and naked, I 
counsel thee to buy of me gold tried 



COME UNTO ME. 205 



in the fire, that thou may est be rich; 
and white raiment, that thou mayest be 
clothed, and that the shame of thy na- 
kedness do not appear; and anoint thine 
eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest 
see." 

It may be, that amid the variety of 
topics which offer themselves for con- 
sideration in examining this vital ques- 
tion, you find your mind confused. Let 
me say then, that the duty of one who 
desires, without longer delay, to make 
his peace with God, is perfectly simple 
and plain. It is defined in that expres- 
sion so often cited, "Come unto me, and 
I will give you rest." You have but 
this one thing to do. You need not 
(now) perplex yourself with inquiring, 
whether the Spirit has changed your 
heart; nor whether your repentance is 
yet deep enough to "authorize" you to 

18 



206 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



believe in Christ; nor whether your mo- 
tives in desiring to be saved are alto- 
gether pure; nor with any thing else 
pertaining to your own exercises. Your 
warrant, your sole warrant, for coming 
to Christ, is contained in his word, not 
in your feelings. It is as much address- 
ed to you as to any other human being; 
as much as it was to any one among the 
myriads who have appropriated it and 
found mercy. It is well to examine 
your heart by the light of Scripture, to 
review your life, and to lay to heart the 
years that have been spent in impeni- 
tence, and the mercies that have been 
abused ; but the exclusive contemplation 
of these things will divert your thoughts 
from the Saviour. And it is in looking 
to Christ that the sinner soonest learns 
to appreciate the evil of sin, the base- 
ness of his ingratitude, and his infinite 



REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE. 207 



obligations to redeeming mercy. This, 
in fact, is genuine repentance; the re- 
pentance which flows from a discovery 
of the divine mercy , in connection with 
the purity and spirituality of the moral 
law. " They shall look upon Me whom 
they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn." It is when the sinner has 
been led by the Holy Spirit to the Sa- 
viour; when he looks upon him he has 
pierced, and beholds the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world, 
that he abhors himself, and repents in 
dust and ashes. Then it is he sorrows 
after a godly sort; sorrows, not because 
he dreads the punishment of sin, but 
because he feels the intrinsic evil of sin, 
and sees that it has been committed 
against a God of infinite goodness, who 
has been all his life loading him with 
blessings. Here is the repentance which 



208 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



is unto life; and it is so far from being 
restricted, as " inquirers" are apt to sup- 
pose, to the dawn of religion in the soul, 
that it forms an essential part of the 
daily experience of the Christian, until 
he exchanges his body of sin and death, 
for the beatific life of heaven. It should 
be added, too, that in many cases, as 
with President Edwards, Christians ex- 
perience far more humbling and affecting 
discoveries of their deep depravity in 
after years, than they did at their con- 
version. 

If these views are correct, the ques- 
tion which now concerns the reader, is, 
Are you willing to come to Christ? 
Do you see and feel yourself to be, by 
nature and by practice, a lost and help- 
less sinner? Is it your earnest desire 
and purpose, God helping you, hence- 
forth to hate and forsake all sin? Are 



ARE YOU WILLING TO COME? 209 



you ready to give up the world, that is, 
the supreme love of the world, and de- 
votion to its interests, for the love and 
service of God? Have you seen the in- 
sufficiency of your own morality, of your 
orthodox creed, your hereditary faith, 
your reformation, your contrition, your 
prayers, your religious observances, to 
entitle you to forgiveness, or recommend 
you to the divine compassion ? Are you 
prepared to renounce all dependence 
upon these things, and to cast yourself 
upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, 
to be washed from your sins in his blood, 
to be justified only through his right- 
eousness, and henceforth to wear his 
yoke, to own him as your Lord, and to 
spend the remainder of your life in his 
service ? If you can answer these ques- 
tions in the affirmative, what hinders 
that you should now come to Christ, and 

18* 



210 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



receive him as your all in all? "Un- 
worthy," you doubtless are; but who 
ever came to Christ, being worthy ? The 
feeling of "worthiness" would actually 
exclude you from his offer: for he "came 
not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance." If you come to him at all, 
it must be just as you are. Here is the 
way in which you must come; described 
so well, that I see not how any unin- 
spired pen, could describe it better : — 

" Just as I am — without one plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me, 
And that thou bidd'st me come to the^ — 
Lamb of God, I come ! 

u Just as I am, and waiting not 
To rid my soul of one dark blot — 
To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, — 
Lamb of Grod, I come ! 

" Just as I am, though tossed about 
With many a conflict, many a doubt, 
Fightings within, and foes without — 
Lamb of God, I come ! 



JUST AS I AM. 211 



u Just as I am — poor, wretched, blind: 
Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 
Yea, all I need in Thee to find, — 
Lamb of God, I come ! 

" Just as T am, thou wilt receive, 
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, 
Because thy promise I believe — 
Lamb of God, I come ! 

" Just as I am — thy love unknown 
Has broken every barrier down; 
Now to be thine, yea, thine alone — 
Lamb of God, I comer* 

I anticipate the feeling with which 
some of my readers may listen to this 
representation. "I would like to feel 
thus, but I do not. I am willing to do 
any thing which may inspire me with 
these feelings, and aid me in coming to 
Christ. What am I to do?" I reply, 

*I learn through a private channel, that this 
beautiful Hymn was written by Miss Elliot, of 
Torquay, England. 



212 THE GREAT QUESTION. 

that the commands of God and his grar 
cious invitations, call for an immediate 
compliance. All things are ready. The 
Saviour bids you look to him, and live. 
The present is his time: it should be 
yours. Such are the uncertainties and 
perils of life, that a single day's delay 
may transfer this question from a world 
of hope to a region of despair. I urge 
you then to go to Christ "just as you 
are," without an hour's procrastination. 
But if you still ask, " What can I do to 
increase the interest I begin to feel in 
this momentous subject, and to assist me 
in entering upon a Christian life?" I 
answer, by suggesting again the follow- 
ing things, which you can and should do. 
I. You can deliberately make up your 
mind as to the duty of attending to the 
subject of religion at this time. Count 
the cost of doing it. (Luke xiv. 25-33.) 



A CHART. 213 



And determine, as the grace of God may 
enable you, whether you will from this 
time make it your paramount concern, 
to seek an interest in the blood of Christ, 
and to serve him. 

2. You can faithfully exert yourself to 
put away all known sin. You may be 
free from gross vices, but you can not be 
free from sin. You may be proud, or 
vain — ambitious — passionate — petulant 
— resentful — avaricious — deceitful— cen- 
sorious — or addicted to levity and foolish 
jesting.* You may have slidden into 

* " Foolish jesting." It is not sufficiently con- 
sidered, how hostile this habit is to serious reflec- 
tion. There are persons who make it their vocation 
to say witty things. They are looked to in all com- 
panies to make the fun. Like the king's fool at the 
ancient courts, they are expected to turn every 
thing into ridicule ) and, conscious of their calling, 
they are perpetually essaying puns and pleasantries. 



214 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



unworthy practices in your business. 
You may be excessively fond of gay 
amusements, and the frivolities of fash- 
ionable life. You may be chargeable 
with the habitual desecration of the 
Sabbath • at least, in the way of neglect- 
ing its ordinances. It is impossible to 
cover this ground by an enumeration of 
specific sins. But take the decalogue, 
and, with the assistance of any good 
exposition, (such as the commentaries 
and catechisms supply,) endeavour to 

Not to comment on this practice as a matter of 
taste, about which opinions might differ, there can 
be no question that it is most unfriendly to re- 
ligious thoughtfulness. The individual who is so 
unfortunate as to be addicted to it, will find it a 
great impediment to his salvation. His good pur- 
poses will speedily succumb to his levity ; and he 
may barter his soul for the paltry reputation of 
a humorist. 



BEGIN NOW. 215 



discover to what sins you are prone. 
And, looking upward for help, begin 
at once to forsake and watch against 
them. Many persons appear to suppose 
that it will be time enough to put away 
their sins, and discharge every known 
duty, after they shall have become Chris- 
tians. This is not the way to be saved. 
" Turn yourselves, and live ye." (Ezek. 
xviii. 32.) "Let the wicked forsake 
his way, and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts, and let him return unto the 
Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; 
and to our God, for he will abundantly 
pardon." (Isaiah lv. 7.) The first thing 
to be done, is to forsake your evil way, 
and even your evil " thoughts." Any 
unwillingness to do this may well lead 
you to distrust your own sincerity in 
professing a desire to enter upon a re- 
ligious life. There is no more decisive 



216 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



characteristic of one who is really " striv 
ing to enter in at the strait gate/' than a 
careful and humble watching against all 
sin, whether in thought, word, or deed. 

3. As closely allied to the counsel 
just given, you can, to a considerable 
extent at least, avoid scenes and associa- 
tions which are hostile to serious reflection. 
Eeligious thoughtfulness is too much an 
exotic in your breast to thrive without 
being sheltered and nurtured. It may be 
impaired, and possibly extinguished, by 
frivolous talking, by gay amusements, 
by light reading. Nay, the very shame 
of the cross, and the stifling of convic- 
tions, (Mark viii. 38, John xii. 42, 43,) 
may efface your impressions. 

4 While shunning these adverse in- 
fluences, you can court those of an opposite 
character, which will fortify you in your 
good purposes, and aid you in your ef- 



THE HOUSE OF PRAYER. 217 



forts. Pre-eminent among these are the 
services of the sanctuary, both on the 
Sabbath and during the week. I men- 
tion the last because of the repugnance 
you may have felt to going to a weekly 
lecture or prayer-meeting. There is a 
feeling on this point among many per- 
sons, as irrational as it is pernicious. 
You certainly, if you are in earnest 
in seeking your salvation, will not 
disparage these social religious meet- 
ings. You will gladly avail yourself of 
the valuable assistance you can derive 
from them in the way of subduing the 
worldliness of your spirit, emancipating 
you from the bondage of things visible 
and transitory, and bringing you into 
a closer fellowship with Christian ordi- 
nances and Christian people. It is well 
to breathe the atmosphere of a house 
of prayer. It is in the sanctuary, too, 

19 



218 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



that God's truth is published and ex- 
plained; and there the omnipotent Spirit 
most frequently works his miracles of 
mercy in the conversion and salvation 
of sinners. 

5. You can devote a portion of every 
day to the devout reading of the Scrip- 
tures, and other religious hooks. Of such 
vital importance is this, that it would be 
impossible to insist upon it too strongly. 
It was by the study of the Bible he 
found in the convent of Erfurt, that Lu- 
ther was gradually led into the truth, 
and so, in the end, equipped for the Re- 
formation. The Rev. Thomas Scott, the 
Commentator, whose praise is in all the 
churches, commenced his ministry in the 
established Church of England, as a de- 
cided Socinian. And it was through the 
blessing of God on his private study of 
the Scriptures, that he became, some 



SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES. 219 



years after, an able expounder and de- 
fender of the faith he had once de- 
stroyed. The " Force of Truth," the 
narrative in which he has portrayed the 
struggles of his powerful intellect in 
escaping from the bondage of error, is 
one of the most interesting and instruc- 
tive books of our Christian literature: 
and you would do well to read it. The 
radiant career of Mr. Wilberforce as a 
Christian statesman, is to be traced, 
under God, (remotely at least,) to his 
perusal of the Greek Testament with his 
friend, the Rev. Isaac Milner, as they 
travelled together from England to Nice. 
These cases, which might easily be 
multiplied, illustrate the importance of 
a diligent study of the Scriptures. The 
entrance of God's word giveth light. 
The Holy Scriptures "are able to make 
thee wise unto salvation." You w ; U 



220 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



not study them in vain. Let your read- 
ing, for the present, be chiefly in the New 
Testament, with the book of Psalms. 
You will probably find it profitable to 
take up one of the Gospels, say the 
Gospel of John, and read it continu- 
ously. In connection with it, read some 
of the Epistles, say Philippians, He- 
brews, 1 Peter and 1 John; and then 
other portions, both of the New Testa- 
ment and the Old. A judicious Com- 
mentary, like Scott or Henry, may be 
of essential service to you. And whether 
you use a commentary or not, the ex- 
amination of parallel passages, as indi- 
cated in the reference Bibles, will throw 
a great deal of light on the sacred text, 
and present familiar truth to your mind 
in new and engaging aspects. 

With the reading of the Scriptures, 
yor should have in hand some other 



SUITABLE READING. 221 



suitable books. I know of none more 
appropriate than those mentioned in a 
former section.* To these may be added, 
the Pilgrim's Progress, Newton's Letters, 
Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises, 
Baxter's Call, and his Saints' Eest, Dr. 
J. W. Alexander's Thoughts on Family 
Worship, James's Anxious Inquirer, 
Henry's Anxious Inquirer, Memoir of 
Dr. Gordon, and the lives of Luther, 
Bunyan, Henry Martyn, Legh Rich- 
mond, Wilberforce, Hannah More, Alex- 
ander, Payson, Neff, McCheyne, Fletcher 
of Madeley, and others of kindred cha- 
racter. Books of this sort will be almost 
certain to fix your attention ; your mind 
will be kept in contact with religion ; 
and the more you read, the more will 
your feelings become enlisted in the 
subject. 

*Vide pp. 108, 109. 



222 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



6. You can confide your views to some 
hind and judicious Christian friend — and 
with great advantage. This is a point 
where many stumble. A sinful pride 
puts them upon concealing their thought- 
fulness until they shall have become 
established in the hope of the gospel: 
then they mean to lay aside all disguise. 
The too common effect of this is, to 
smother and destroy their seriousness 
altogether. You surely have some friend 
in whom you can trust, — your pastor, if 
no one else; and you could not gratify 
him more than by going to him on such 
an errand. Give him the opportunity, 
and he will explain many things which 
may perplex you. He will point out 
your mistakes and dangers. He will 
sympathize with you in your trials and 
temptations. And although he can do 
nothing effectual for you, but simply 



NECESSITY OF PRAYER. 223 



say, with John the Baptist, " Behold 
the Lamb of God, who taketh away 
the sin of the world I" jet he may 
do (Ids in such a way as shall, by the 
divine blessing, greatly help you in find- 
ing the road to the cross. 

7. I waive various other points, to say, 
in conclusion, you can pray. And pray 
you must, if you would be saved. Pray 
you will, if you are not practising self- 
deception. I mention this last, because 
it must be combined with all the other 
duties which have been specified, or 
they will be nugatory. Without prayer 
you can neither put away your sins, nor 
shun evil associations. Without prayer, 
the services of the sanctuary may but 
harden you; the private study of the 
Bible will be dry and repulsive ; and the 
counsels of Christian friendship will fall 
upon reluctant ears. We have not the 



224 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



slightest reason to expect that we shall 
ever understand the gospel, or ever be 
renewed, or pardoned, or saved, without 
prayer. There is nothing more indis- 
pensable ; nothing which promises more 
affluent returns. It is one of the en- 
dearing titles of the Deity, the Hearer 
of Prayer. (Ps. Ixv. 2.) "We are every- 
where exhorted to pray. " Seek ye the 
Lord while he may be found; call ye 
upon him while he is near;" — a com- 
mand addressed to those who are imme- 
diately told, " Let the wiclced forsake his 
way," etc. (Isa. Iv. 6, 7.) "Then shall 
ye call upon me, and ye shall go and 
pray unto me, and I will hearken unto 
you. And ye shall seek me, and find 
me, when ye shall search for me with all 
your heart." (Jer. xxix. 12, 13.) "Men 
ought always to pray, and not to faint." 
"Ask, and it shall be given you." (See 



PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT. 



tfte whole passage, Matt. vii. 7-11. See 
also Phil. iv. 6. 1 Thess. v. 17. Heb. 
iv. 16. James i. 5. 1 John v. 14, 15.) 
Among the promises connected with 
prayer, that of the Spirit's influence is 
pre-eminent. (See Luke xi. 13.) As 
there is no blessing we so much need, so 
there is none which is so freely promised. 
Let this be your encouragement. The 
Holy Spirit can do for you all that you 
require. He can remove all your diffi- 
culties on points of doctrine. He can 
guide you into the truth. He can re- 
solve all your questions of duty. He 
can preserve you from self-deception. 
He can awaken in your breast an in- 
genuous sorrow for sin. He can take 
away your heart of stone, and give you 
a heart of flesh. He can unveil to you 
the glorious character of the Redeemer, 
and lead you, a willing and joyful cap- 



226 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



tive, to his feet. He can transform you 
into a new creature in Christ Jesus, 
make you as holy as you have been cor- 
rupt, prepare you for heaven, and bring 
you there. Are not these blessings 
worth praying for? 

It is of no avail to say, that you are 
not yet "good enough" to pray; that 
your heart is too callous; that you could 
not pray with "pure motives;" and 
that God would not hear your prayers. 
All these are the suggestions of pride 
and unbelief. It is setting up your own 
caprices, or, at least, your own miscon- 
ceptions, against the clear authority of 
God. It is impossible for you to exa- 
mine the Scripture testimonies on this 
subject, with any degree of candour, 
without perceiving that he has made it 
the imperative duty of every one to pray ; 
and that you have no reason to look for 



PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. 227 



his blessing, except in answer to prayer. 
Besides, if the corrupt state of your 
heart, the selfishness of your motives, 
and the ascendency of the world over 
you, disqualify you for praying, when 
are these obstacles to be removed? and 
how? It is just the case of a sick man 
waiting to cure himself, before he sends 
for a physician. Undoubtedly, it is that 
"evil heart of unbelief" which consti- 
tutes the grand hinderance to your sal- 
vation, and which makes it impossible for 
you, not only to pray aright, but to read 
the Scriptures aright, to hear the preach- 
ing of the gospel aright, or to do any thing 
else in such a manner as to receive the 
approval of a holy God. But what are you 
to do? Will you shut up your Bible, will 
you absent yourself from the sanctuary, 
will you cease from all further efforts to 
secure your salvation, because you are 



228 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



too . sinful to do these things as they 
ought to be done ? You cannot but see 
the sophistry of this pretext. It is he- 
cause you are full of sin, you ought to 
pray. Pray as the publican did. Pray 
as the dying thief did. Pray as the 
father of the demoniac child did: "Lord, 
I believe: help thou mine unbelief." 
Pray thus, and continue praying, and 
you will not pray in vain. 

To imagine that you have no right to 
pray in your present condition, is a sheer 
illusion. You have no right to abstain 
from praying. To suppose that it could 
do you no good, is a kindred mistake. 
Try the experiment. Unfit as you feel 
yourself to be for it; conscious that 
your heart is still selfish and worldly; 
ashamed, it may be, to look up to God, 
and take his name upon your lips; make 
the effort. These very impediments only 



THINGS YOU CAN DO. 229 



show how much you need to pray. And 
it will surprise and encourage you to 
find how certainly they will yield to 
earnest and habitual prayer. 

Such, then, is the answer to your in- 
quiry, "Wliat can I do to became more 
deeply interested in religion?" 

YOU CAN DELIBERATELY MAKE UP YOUR 
MIND, AS TO THE DUTY OF ATTENDING TO 
THE CLAIMS OF RELIGION. YOU CAN FAITH- 
FULLY EXERT YOURSELF TO PUT AWAY ALL 
KNOWN SIN. YOU CAN, TO A CERTAIN EX- 
TENT, AVOID SCENES AND ASSOCIATIONS 
WHICH ARE HOSTILE TO SERIOUS REFLEC- 
TION. YOU CAN COURT SUCH INFLUENCES 
AS ARE OF AN OPPOSITE CHARACTER. YOU 
CAN DEVOTE A PORTION OF EVERY DAY TO 
THE DEVOUT READING OF THE SCRIPTURES 
AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS. YOU CAN 

CONFIDE YOUR VIEWS TO SOME KIND AND 
20 



230 THE GREAT QUESTION. 



judicious Christian friend. And you 

CAN PRAY. 

All these things you can do. You 
can persevere in doing them. And you 
have far more encouragement to set 
about the work, than you have to prose- 
cute any secular scheme or business 
whatever. 

Are you willing to make the trial? 
An eternity of joy or misery may hang 
upon your decision. What shall it be ? 
Will you still neglect the great salva- 
tion? Or will you, in humble depend- 
ence upon the Spirit of God for all need- 
ful grace, begin at once to consider the 

SUBJECT OF PERSONAL RELIGION? 



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